Don't Fade Away
by Ephemeral Lunatic
Summary: Lanie comes into the morgue and finds Kate laying on her table. This does not bode well. Post-4x20 The Limey, ignoring Headhunters and beyond. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

"Kate?" Lanie shrieks, startled so badly that all the paperwork she held in her fingers is now drifting aimlessly to the floor in a flurry of white sheets and manila envelopes.

The last thing the medical examiner expected to see at eleven o'clock on a Wednesday night after entering her exam room was her best friend sprawled out across an autopsy table, on her back with her eyes closed, no less.

"Hey Lanie," said best friend replies somberly, her voice barely above a whisper. She tilts her head to the side, faces the doctor with a dim smile.

If that's not an obvious tell that something bad has happened, Lanie Parish doesn't know what is.

"Damn girl, what have I told you about showing up unannounced after hours? And for the record, Kate Beckett, I never want to walk in on you like this on my table, dead or alive, ever again, you got me? Gonna give somebody a heart attack."

"Yeah, sorry. Just...didn't know where else to go."

"What do you mean? What happened?"

Kate lets out a strangled breath of air, frustration and anxiety rippling through the exhale. The ME crosses her arms and lifts a curious eyebrow in her friend's direction. She has a sneaky suspicion she already knows where this is headed, especially after recent events and talks over the past few days.

"You don't want to talk about it," Lanie observes after the detective remains silent, and Kate gives her a wry look before tilting her head away, staring at the bright lights and equipment along the ceiling.

"No," she says simply. "Not really."

"So why're you here?"

Another frustrated sigh attached to a groan escapes the detective, and she lifts her arm, setting her wrist and forearm over her eyes, blocking out the light and everything else in the room. Fade to black. If only it were so simple to just shut out the world, turn off her mind and not think for a while, even if just for a few minutes. Just a few minutes free of the pain, of the hurt.

"What are you hiding from, Kate?"

"I'm not hiding," she says from beneath her arm, unmoving.

"Well I know you're not here about a case. You caught the guys; case closed. So what is it? More trouble with Writer Boy?"

"Lanie."

"Come on, spill. What happened this time? You try talking to him? Get in a fight?"

"We're not fighting." _But I wish we were_, Kate thinks. _Then at least we'd be talking._

But no, they're not fighting. There's no opportunity to have it out with him anyway. Castle's not even giving her the time of day. He's off with "_flight attendant"_ Jacinda on date number four in three days. She's the furthest thing from him mind now, and it's tearing her to pieces.

"Well it must be something big this time, otherwise you wouldn't be napping in my morgue instead of out for drinks or snug in bed at home."

"Tried that," Kate says, lifting her arm from her eyes briefly to look at her friend. Lanie sees the gloomy look to the green orbs, but her expression holds something else there as well. Pain, she thinks, and a little bit of fear.

"Tried it last week, too," she continues, "He blew me off then and did it again tonight to run off with his blonde bimbo again."

"I'm sorry, Kate." Lanie looks upon her friend with a sympathetic look, unsure of what else to say, how to console her.

"You know what's worse? After he ran off with his flight attendant, I went out for a drink with Hunt before his flight left for London. Charming, attractive guy asks me out, and I still couldn't get my mind off of him. I don't know what happened, Lanie. I try to figure it out and nothing works. Every time I try to approach him, something gets in the way or he just takes off again. Everything's just broken now. It's shattered into pieces and I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do to fix it."

Kate's voice comes out broken itself and the sound tugs at the ME's heartstrings. In all the years they've known each other, she can't recall a single time where Kate Beckett looked so crestfallen. So lost. Not when it came to a man in her life. She wasn't even this despondent when Sorenson left her for the job in Boston, and she was actually dating the guy.

"God, I royally screwed this up. I never should have lied to him."

"Whoa, back up a minute," the ME says in surprise, "What do you mean 'never should have lied to him'? Lied to him about what?"

Kate lets out a ragged breath.

"It's a long story."

"I've got plenty of time to hear it."

"I don't even know where to start."

"How about wherever is relevant to now?"

Kate sighs. "You're gonna want to kill me for not telling you sooner."

"I wanted to strangle you the moment I saw you on that table. Spit it out already, Beckett."

Lanie pulls over a chair and sidles up next to the table, setting a gentle hand on Kate's shoulder. She's always seen it—that connection between her and the writer. She might not have been very vocal about it in the past year or so, but that didn't mean she was any less interested, any less curious as to where they stood. It was about damn time Kate started fessing up about everything and obviously there's more to the story than she originally thought.

"He told me he loved me."

"What!" Lanie squealed. "When did that happen?"

Kate's mouth twists and she chews the inside of her cheek. "The day I was shot."

The confession makes Lanie's eyes go wide.

"Kate that was ten months ago."

"Yeah."

"All this time and you haven't told me?"

The detective gives her friend a grim look before turning away again, eyes to the bright ceiling above. By her tone of voice, Kate can tell that the news has upset her, but Lanie is reining it in, holding back for now. For her sake. She's grateful for that.

The next admission is only going to dig her hole a little deeper.

"Haven't told him, either."

Lanie quirks a brow to that, but stays silent, so after taking another almost painful breath of air, Kate continues explaining.

"I lied to him, Lanie. I told him—I told everyone—that I didn't remember the shooting. But it was all a lie. I remember everything about that day. From the time I stood up on that podium until the moment I blacked out in Castle's arms, I remember all of it. Every single second."

Kate's face crumples into her hands and she has to viciously fight back the urge to just break down right then and there. Lanie is speechless.

"You know, he cried and he begged me, pleaded with me to stay with him," she goes on, in a tone of voice almost sardonic and self-pitying enough that it makes Lanie's lower lip lift into a sad frown.

"He told me he loved me and what do I do? I lie to him, abandon him, and keep the truth from him all this time. And now it's too late. Now he's moved on, is out chasing flight attendants and it's like overnight he doesn't give a damn about me anymore. Like the man I know, the man who loves me is nothing but a memory that's fading away before my eyes."

"Kate," Lanie sets her palm over Kate's forearm, tugs to pull the hand away from her face. The detective hesitates at first but finally meets her gaze.

"Why'd you lie to him?" And for that matter, _Why'd you lie to all of us? _though she leaves the question unasked. She has a feeling it will be answered regardless.

Kate averts her eyes for a moment, takes another deep breath then turns her head back to her friend, eyes glistening with unshed tears in the light.

"Because I'm an idiot?" she grinds out. "Because I still had a boyfriend I wasn't in love with. Because I was grieving my mom and Montgomery. Because I had just been shot and almost died, and I was a mess and my whole world was spinning out of control and...god, Lanie, I don't want to screw this up. I just...I couldn't, I can't—"

Kate grits her teeth and squeezes her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry, not to lose it. Suddenly she feels her friend's arms wrapping around her, and the ME's cheek to her forehead. It helps a little, having that support. She might not understand completely, but she's not judging. After all this time of keeping her miserable secret all to herself, having someone there to vent to and help her through things is a blessing in itself. She's needed this.

"You love him." Lanie says softly, and it's not a question because she already knows. She's known for a while. She could see it, far before even the detective herself did.

Kate had slowly fallen for her partner over two years ago, but she was too late to realize it back then. Rather than rub salt in the wound and throw out an _"I told you so!" _when Castle left for the Hamptons with Gina, leaving Kate brokenhearted and lonely, Lanie tried her hand at matchmaker again, and through connections with another doctor friend, Kate was introduced to Josh.

Josh was the exact opposite of Castle. He was taller, darker, serious and mature, and all about his job. Nothing about him would ever remind her about Richard Castle, and that was exactly what Kate needed that summer. To not remember. To forget. Castle left, and then he never called. She was just too late, and she needed to move on.

Even with Josh around though, the light in Kate's eyes still didn't fully return until Castle did that fall. Because no matter how hard she tried to forget, and despite the man she was dating who was nothing like the man who had left her behind, she still couldn't move past that hurt. She still couldn't forget him.

She might not have wanted to talk about the "interesting arrest" she had made that September morning, but Lanie could tell. Having him back in her life affected her in only a way that Richard Castle could, because deep down, she was still crazy about him. Still falling hopelessly in love with him the more time they spend around each other. Two magnets drawn together despite all the obstacles placed between them.

Even if they haven't discussed the issue in well over a year until recently, it's plain to see to Lanie that Kate's feelings have only magnified one hundred fold or more since then. The magnetic pull has just continued to intensify. She never moved past the hurt before, and moving past the hurt now? Currently looking next to impossible.

The ME feels her friend give a subtle but affirmative nod beneath her after a brief moment of quiet, and she gives her a firm squeeze on the arm, a nudge with her cheek.

"Girl, you've got it bad," she says with a lilt, pulling back away from her to find a smile on her friend's face, small but unmistakable.

"Yeah," Kate replies, and Lanie can hear the humor start bubbling up in her voice. "I really do, don't I?"

Then, surprisingly enough, Kate laughs.

"How the hell did that happen anyway?"

Lanie smiles and rolls right along with it, happy to see that her mood is improving.

"Honestly! I don't know how you managed to be so stubborn for so long. I've been telling you for years. Took you long enough to figure it out."

"Haven't really figured anything out yet," Kate corrects her. "He's hardly even looking at me anymore. Hell, you know what he told me tonight before he left?"

"What?"

"Jacinda is 'fun and uncomplicated'. That that's what he needs right now."

And just like that, the floodgates she'd be keeping tightly closed with lock and key just burst open at the seams. Tears fall unbidden down her cheeks at the recital of his words.

"It felt no different than had I been punched in the gut. Like he said it to deliberately tell me 'I don't want you anymore'. Fun and uncomplicated...how do I even compare to that when I'm the total polar opposite? When I'm anything but fun and uncomplicated right now? When I'm just a broken mess?"

Lanie wastes no time responding to that train of thought, because _no, Kate Beckett, you are not just a broken mess, and some flighty blonde stewardess has nothing on you and don't you forget it. _Now she just needs to get Kate herself to believe it.

"How?" The ME starts, and Kate turns to her with glistening, red-rimmed eyes. "By _being you_."

The detective swipes an unsteady hand beneath her eyes to catch the moisture and listens intently as her friend continues on.

"There is no comparison, Kate. You _are _the total polar opposite of that woman, and any other one he's been with since we've known him. Life can be complicated, and sometimes it's not always fun, but it's real, and you are real, Kate Beckett.

"I know you're having doubts because of recent events, but trust me. I've seen the way he looks at you. And now knowing what he said all those months ago, and how he's stuck around with you since then, it's only more crystal clear to me. He can't just turn those feelings off overnight. He's trying, Kate, that's where the trip to Vegas and the blondie comes in, but it's not going to work for long. Especially once he knows how you feel about him. He thinks it's going nowhere with you. He's trying to move on."

Lanie raises her eyebrow then and levels Kate with a look. Kate swallows hard.

"You need go to him and explain everything. Lay everything out on the table this time, because I'll be damned if I have to watch you go through another heartbreak over that man."

Kate tilts her head back, closing her eyes and draping her arm along her forehead again. She draws in a breath.

"I know," she says on an exhale. "I will. First thing tomorrow morning, I'll go to him—"

"And don't take no for an answer this time."

"Right. And I'll get him some place with no distractions. Come clean about everything."

"Good. And I want details when—"

Just as the words leave Lanie's mouth, the door to the autopsy room swings open. Lanie swivels in her chair and is surprised to find Castle, of all people, waltzing inside.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey Lanie, is Alexis still around here by any chance?"

They hear his voice from outside the room before he even steps through the door, but neither of the women is quick enough to register or react to his sudden appearance.

Is it fate? No, she doesn't believe in fate or destiny and all that other nonsense. He's the one who does. Castle just...he's got impeccable (or perhaps awful?) timing.

Or maybe his ears were burning just a bit? He does seem to have a sixth sense about certain things sometimes.

Either way, whatever the reason he chose to appear now of all times, when she was halfway to a blubbering, tearful mess, she's stunned beyond belief and finding herself incapable of movement. Of speech.

"Castle?" Lanie squeaks out, not fairing any better herself, which is saying something. "What are you—"

"I tried to call and tell her I'd pick her up but it went to voicemail, so I figured I'd just drop in and—Oh, sorry. Didn't realize you were working on someone."

He's only managed to take a couple steps inside and is still a fair distance away from the pair, but what's that he said? Working on someone?

"What?" Lanie starts, and then it hits her that Kate's face is currently obscured behind her body from his vantage point. She turns her head back around to Kate, who is lying still and looks positively terrified.

"Fresh case already, huh? What is it this time?"

"Castle, wait a second—" Lanie tries to warn him, but he's too damn curious and she's just not fast enough. His inquisitive nature gets the best of him and he steps forward and leans over to have a look.

Kate catches his eyes for a fraction of a second before she sees the color drain from his face, his skin taking on a ghostly, pale shade of white, his expression aghast.

Castle startles backward, knocking into another table before hitting his head on something clamped and dangling from overhead. He collides with it with enough force that the physical blow and sudden shock of seeing the woman he loved—oh, who is he kidding. He still loves her—on an autopsy table, it knocks him off his feet, down onto his knees.

"K-Kate," he stammers, a voice and expression so desolate that it tears the woman in question apart. "Kate."

She bolts upright and is down on the floor with him in a split second, all her previous thoughts of treading carefully with him and despairing over him completely forgotten.

"No, no, no. I'm fine. I'm okay."

He stares back at her with a set of eyes she'd only seen once before on him, ten months ago. Seeing those grief-stricken blue orbs again, there's zero hesitation in her body when the fingers of one hand instinctively clutch onto the lapel of his jacket while the other caresses down his cheek, coming to rest along his shoulder, thumb lightly grazing his jawline.

"Told you you were going to give someone a heart attack," Lanie says to Kate, earning her a quick scowl from the other woman.

"Kate," Castle breathes, the air coming in and out of him in ragged breaths and Kate immediately turns her attention back on him.

"Oh god, Castle. Please don't have a heart attack," she says shakily, feeling his carotid pulse hammering against the palm of her hand.

Whatever detachment and disinterest he'd shown her, whatever anger he'd been holding towards her in the past week and a half— it's gone now, cast into the wind. His mother was right. He really can't switch it off. He loves her, and she...

She was on the table. Flat out on the table. Like a corpse. And Lanie. Lanie was huddled over her, like she was doing her job.

"Kate. I thought—Oh god, Kate."

He grips at her upper arms, fingers curling behind to her shoulders and his stunned eyes finally manage to meet and focus in on hers for more than a glimmer of a second. He can almost feel himself on the verge of tears with wetness building up in his eyes.

When she feels him tug, she's already two steps ahead of him on closing her arms around him in an embrace.

"No, Castle. I'm fine. I'm safe," she says soothingly, boldly carding her fingers through his hair in reassurance and comfort. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I just wasn't thinking."

Lanie can't help but think that she means much more than just about being on the autopsy table.

Castle's breathing slowly starts to come back under control, the puffs of warm, moist breath tickling along her neck and into her hair, but Kate startles when she feels something wet trace along her fingers as she threads them through his hair. She pulls back her hand to find a tint of red on her skin, liquid and warm.

"Oh god, you're bleeding."

"I am?"

"Wait, hold still. Let me see."

Lanie takes that as her cue to stop enjoying the show and slide off her chair to kneel down next to Castle as well. Kate's parting his hair around and points in the general direction she felt the blood at so that Lanie can check him over for injury.

"You really cracked your head into that lighthead hard, didn't you?" the ME observes upon further inspection of his scalp. It's a decent cut, probably just a superficial bleeder, but—

"Think he'll need stitches?" Kate asks, her fingers out of the way and yet still threaded through his hair just outside the injury site. Castle cringes at the thought but Lanie nods her head in agreement.

"I'd say so, unless he wants to gain a little bald spot on the back of his head there," she emphasises, tapping a finger lightly to his skull.

"Oh no, no, no. No bald spots for me. I happen to like my hair just fine the way it is, thank you." Castle winces, rubbing his hand up the back of his head. His adrenaline is starting to fade and the pain is finally catching up and registering with his brain. He's going to have one hell of a headache in a bit here.

His fingers bump into Kate's and they share a look, a look much like one they haven't shared in what was beginning to feel like ages. It gives her some hope. He's still in there. The man she knows and loves hasn't disappeared. He's just gone into hiding, for what reason she's still unsure of, but he's there.

With renewed resolve, she decides that just this once, she's going to take a chance and believe in fate, destiny, or whatever the hell Castle would call this opportunity he has unknowingly opened up to her.

She's bound and determined now to get him back.

"I'll take you."

"Take me?" he looks her over curiously. "Take me where?"

"To the emergency room."

"Emergency room? Wait, Lanie's a doctor. Can't she just—"

"You could have a concussion, Castle," Kate reasons, shooting a look across the top of his head and over to Lanie.

The ME can't hold back a smirk. _'atta girl, Kate. Seize the opportunity. _They were back in business. She still had plenty of fight left in her, and Kate Beckett was taking back control of the playing field.

Now _this _was more like it.

Castle swings his head around to Lanie, who puts on a stern face for him.

"In my professional opinion, you're definitely going to need to get that head of yours examined, Castle."

There's a somewhat bitter and angry quip to the way she says it but he has no clue. It's not lost on Kate though, who smiles gratefully at her friend before turning her attention back to her mildly injured partner. He's looking none too pleased with the outlook of this treatment plan, but seems resigned to his fate nevertheless.

"I'm going to be stuck in there for hours," he moans, frowning, rubbing at his head again.

"I'll keep you company." Kate moves to stand and holds her hand out to him, bracing herself for the possibility that he might shrug her off, opt to go by himself. In which case, she'll have to fight him on it tooth and nail until he relents. She's prepared to do it if she has to. "Partners, right?"

He stares up at her for a few seconds and then a pleasant smile forms on her lips when he actually accepts her gesture, takes her hand in his. She helps him off the floor and onto his feet and immediately wraps her fingers around the crook of his elbow, as if to anchor him to her, not let him escape if he should try to.

He glances down at her fingers and back up to her face, but he can't get a read on her. She's not looking at him anymore. She's all business now, her eyes on Lanie.

"Lanie, do you have anything I can cover this with in the meantime?" she asks, motioning towards his still lightly bleeding wound with the index finger of her free hand.

"Yeah, just give me a sec."

Lanie steps away from them and decides to take her time browsing through her supplies. Sure enough, the awkward silence between the two on the other end of the room doesn't last but a moment of time. She expected it wouldn't.

"Is it really that bad?"

"Does it hurt?"

The questions come out simultaneously, causing the pair to chuckle in unison.

"I guess we're back in sync again, huh?" Kate comments with a lift of her lips, looking up at him to gauge his reaction. She's looking for a tell that he's schooling his features, hiding his true feelings from her, but she doesn't get one.

He can't hide his feelings right now any better than he could when he looked upon her in that evening gown the night before. The gown she left in with Detective Inspector Hunt that had him sending out a bitter tweet on Twitter about how he's a fan of Sherlock Holmes because the detective has a dislike for Scotland Yard.

His switch is faulty, maybe. Needs some tweaking, fixing.

The light smile on his face drops suddenly and he reminds himself that he's mad at her, that she lied to him, feels nothing for him. But then he can't help focusing back in on the way her fingers maintain their position on the inside of his elbow, the warmth of her flesh against his and the way her ring finger and pinky seem to have a subtle but unmistakable nervous twitch to them every few seconds.

And then he watches as she brings up her hand to brush aside some hair and look over his scalp again.

"Hurts?" she asks softly.

She's just being...what, exactly? Thoughtful? Kind? Because he's injured. It's just because he's injured. He can't let himself read into it anymore than that. Not when he knows what he knows. His heart can't take much more breakage.

"Still stings." His heart, his head...

"It's not so bad," she admits, tracing her finger along the outside of the wound, giving him an idea of it's size, "but better to be safe than sorry, right? Not ignore things, just in case."

"Yeah, I-I guess so."

What exactly are they talking about here? His head injury or...?

"Here you go, Castle," says Lanie, returning with a carefully trimmed strip of sterile gauze. "It's not bleeding so much now but keep it covered until you get there so nothing flies into it enroute. That's the last place you want New York dirt and grime getting into."

Kate slides her hand out of the way and Lanie sets the white square in place over his head wound. Castle brings his own hand up to hold it in place.

"Come on, partner. Let's get you fixed up, huh?" Kate says to him, tugging on his arm. He falls into step beside her, head spinning for two different reasons.

Kate turns her head back before exiting, mouthing a silent _Thank you _to Lanie, who motions with her hand to her ear _Call me! _as they step out of the room.


	3. Chapter 3

The entrance to the Office of Chief Medical Examiner is literally just a five minute walk from NYU's Langone Medical Center. The buildings are right down the street from each other on 1st Avenue, just a few hundred feet of distance between their doors. It's a good thing, for the sake of Castle's skull, since they don't have far to go, and also because it will save them both from the awkwardness of a car ride together. They barely spoke a word to one another the last time they were in her cruiser and Kate's not too keen on suffering through that situation again.

He's fiddling with his phone once they step outside the OCME; texting, she presumes, probably giving his mother and Alexis a heads up on where he's going and why. She's trying not to think about it, but in the end she can't rule out the possibility of it being Jacinda on the receiving end of his text, either.

Castle had left the precinct to go on his date hours ago, and then what? Came by the morgue to pick up Alexis and take her home? So maybe the thing, whatever it was, between he and the flight attendant wasn't so serious. He was there at the morgue alone, planning on picking up his daughter and going home. No overnight stay at her place or his. No casual, no-strings-attached sex with a woman he'd only known for three days.

God, she hopes he hasn't slept with her yet.

Yet? Scratch that. Hopes he hasn't considered sleeping with her at all.

She has no actual claim on him; she knows that. Castle is free to do what and, well, whomever he pleases, much as the thought makes her cringe and her skin crawl, especially when her brain immediately conjures up images of blonde hairs attached to his pillowcases, bedsheets, or dangling off his clothing the morning after. She'd just thought—

They had an understanding. When she'd come back to him in September after three months apart, they sat on those swings, talked in thinly-veiled subtext and she thought he understood, thought on some level that he grasped what she was trying to tell him. Can't have the kind of relationship I want—_with you._ She thought that he was willing to wait her out, willing to settle on enough for now.

That assumption of hers was driven home when he declined going out with Serena Kaye and waited around for her instead, choosing to go out for burgers after work, her treat. He never strayed and always showed up. Even times when there wasn't a case, when it was just him, her and the boys hanging out in the break room, discussing things like Ryan's upcoming wedding, his mother's acting school, Alexis' college aspirations or even silly things like some new game they'd become fascinated with on their iPhones. He was just _there_. He was _with _her. Partners, in almost every sense of the word.

Now, she's not so sure. When she tried to approach him in the break room, he just didn't get it. He even agreed that he didn't get it. Didn't understand what she was asking him, what she was trying to say. She has to spell it out, needs to find the right words, the right time to say them.

_No time like the present, _Lanie had said—yeah, until a blonde bimbo hops out of his Ferrari and then he won't even look at her, much less give her a chance to speak to him.

_Come on fate, destiny...oh, what the hell, come on, Universe! Don't let me down and I won't let you down, either._

Castle pockets his phone as they approach the emergency room door and Kate hangs back behind him, letting him get ahead of her, recalling a happier time together where they could talk and banter their way through a disagreement.

'_Why do you always have to be first?'_

It seemed so silly at the time, arguing about who gets to lead while they're bound together at the wrist by her handcuffs, but looking back on it now, she realizes something: she hasn't just been going first through the door, first out of the elevator—she's been going first in everything. Fixing herself before letting him in. Making him wait until she was ready. Putting her needs before his.

No more.

"You coming?" he asks as the doors slide open and he becomes visibly confused as to why she's not already inside the building. It's the first words spoken since they left the OCME, and now she's thinking it's the best conversation they could have started this trip with.

"Yeah," she says, and to make it perfectly clear, "I'm with you."

Fortunately, it's not all that packed inside. There's plenty of seating in the lobby and when Castle goes up to sign himself in, the list of names ahead of him that haven't already been admitted inside is relatively small.

Kate takes the opportunity to choose their seating arrangement while he's occupied at the front desk filling out paperwork. She opts for a secluded cluster of chairs off in the corner of the room, back away from the rest of the people waiting to be seen by a doctor. The emergency room admits patients by seriousness of their symptoms, not by order of arrival. She's judging by the coughing and sneezing that the bulk of the group is displaying that her partner and his split-open head will likely get in a lot quicker than the rest of them will.

Even so, the secluded area away from prying eyes and curious ears will only serve to help the situation. _No distractions. _She'll even snatch his phone away from him if she has to.

"Careful, watch your head," she tells him when he comes to sit down next to her. The chairs are right up against the wall and she can just see him sitting down too quickly and smacking the back of his skull right into it, making the injury worse. She holds her hand up between his head and the wall, guiding him down into the seat.

"Thanks," he says, and she can swear he fidgeted in his seat a little as he said it.

They shared a hug earlier, and some rather significant touches and words. Now it's awkward between them not because he's avoiding her or running off with a date, but because they've shared another one of those moments that they typically don't tend to talk about after the fact, and avoid addressing in the future like a plague. There's no murderer to stop, no case to solve and no interrupting co-workers that come between them and the awkwardness now.

Just the two of them and their thoughts, feelings, words.

"So," she starts, tilting her head down and looking up at him through her lashes as she says it, "How'd your date go?"

She doesn't want to know, but she does want to know. She hates that she does. Hates it so much she could be sick. As much as it makes her nauseous to think about him with another woman, there's a part of her that wants every gritty detail, just to know how far he's slipped away from her. If he's slipped away beyond reach.

"Cut short. Her flight back to Las Vegas got pushed up and she had to leave before we even got to dessert. That's why I figured I'd pick up Alexis on my way home if she was still around," he explains, wiggling his phone at her to emphasize that it was indeed Alexis that he was texting before. "Turns out she left a lot sooner than I had arrived."

She truly hopes he didn't just hear the immensely elated sigh of relief that just erupted from her chest and out of her mouth.

Jacinda is gone. Sky high and miles, states away.

_Okay, Universe. I'll give you points for making it a flight attendant and not a Manhattanite runway model._

"Sorry," she says, though she's really not sure what for in this context.

He doesn't reply right away, and just when she thinks that his lack of response is going to lead into another awkward silence—

"No, you're not."

About Jacinda leaving? She really isn't, but even so—

"What?"

He turns in his seat, his arm resting along the back of his chair and against the wall. The look on his face couldn't possibly be any more stern.

"You're not sorry."

He fixes her with a stare, as if he's daring her to deny it, waiting for the opportunity to shred the denial to pieces, but she won't deny it, because it's true. He's not wrong.

"No, you're right. I'm not sorry."

His expression twists and his mouth opens just a smidgen at the admission from her. She's not sorry his date was cut short? That Jacinda is on a flight back to the west coast, leaving him alone again? No, of course not. Why would she be?

"Right, because you got pissed off every time I even mentioned her name, even when she was helpful to the case and was a key element in solving it."

"Castle—"

"What I still don't get is why?"

Now it's Kate's turn to gape at him. He really doesn't get it, does he?

"Why does it matter to you who I spend time with, Kate? Why does it piss you off so much when I look at another woman?"

She opens her mouth to respond but he silences her with more of his seething words.

"It's been like this since the beginning. You don't want me, but you don't want anyone else to have me either. Is that it? You don't want me to be happy while you're all alone?"

Wait, what?

_You don't want me_

That's...that's what this has been about? He's not tired of waiting, he just...he thinks she doesn't want him?

"Okay, now just hold on a minute. I'm going to ignore that last part because I _know _you know that's not true and clearly you're just venting your anger at me but...where's this all coming from, Castle?" she says seriously, her brows knit in confusion and surprise.

He averts his eyes and laughs mirthlessly, shaking his head. She grabs his wrist then, jerking on it to pull his attention back to her. She takes a concentrated breath, then lets it free.

Be bold, Kate.

"What makes you think that I don't want you?"

He turns his head sharply back to her, making her startle, and his eyes meet hers again in an icy stare, hurt and anger suffused with the cold blue color of his irises. Her heart stumbles in her chest, the quick beats of her pulse gaining in tempo the longer she holds his stare.

"You lied to me," he grits out, "You told me you didn't remember, but you do."

She doesn't have to ask for clarification on what he's implying, and he knows she doesn't need it, either, with the way the determination on her face wavers and her lip trembles.

He waits a beat, lets it sink in, ripple through her, and then he delivers the final, crushing blow.

"No, you remember _every second of it_, don't you?"

Something clenches in her stomach, gripping her like a tightened vice and then it all comes together. It all makes sense. Why he's drifted away, why he's been so intentionally cruel and petulant toward her, openly parading around with his newly acquainted flight attendant for her and the rest of the world to watch and see.

"You were behind the glass," she murmurs, her voice cracking at the end of the sentence.

"Yeah, I was. And I heard. Everything."

The memories of the day she interrogated Bobby Lopez come rushing back to her now. Drilling into him about trauma and her own shooting, coming out of the box to find coffee left on her desk and his vacant seat beside it. That was the moment when everything changed. When they went from almost confessing their feelings for each other to being completely miserable around one another. From that moment on, he had changed. Everything had changed.

How did she not see it before?

"Castle, I—I was going to tell you. I swear to you, I was, and whatever reason you're thinking it is that I lied to you, it's all wrong. You've got it all wrong."

He's glaring daggers across the room now as she speaks, brow tightly creased, nostrils flaring through each breath he takes in and breathes out. Her grip on his wrist grows stronger, the need to anchor him to her more powerful than ever before.

"I shouldn't have lied to you, I know that. It was a stupid and impulsive decision, but believe me, I've never regretted anything more in my life than I do about that day at the hospital. I was scared, Castle. Overcome. I didn't know what to do, how to do it."

"Scared of _me_?" he says incredulously.

"You. Me. _Us_," she says, gesturing between them. "Amongst other things."

He frowns, scoffs out a breath of air. It's not the answer he was wanting to hear.

People on the other side of the waiting room have already begun to notice the raised voices and obvious tension going on between them. Considering Castle's got a bleeding knot on the back of his head, it wouldn't be too far-fetched a theory to assume that the whispers the other patients are conspicuously tossing around to each other probably have something to do with domestic violence. No matter. She's not going to let the judging eyes and gossip of complete strangers get in the way of this.

"Listen," she says to him, lowering the volume of her voice. "I've spent all this time trying to work through my issues so I can be better, be whole_, _Castle. I've been back in therapy again. Did you know that? _Therapy. _This is important to me. _You _are important to me. I don't want to screw this up."

"And perpetuating a lie to me for ten months isn't screwing things up?" he barks out on a mirthless laugh.

"No, Castle. You're exactly right. I screwed up. I screwed up big, but at least I'm trying here."

There's no malice in it, not intentionally, but it still strikes him all the same.

"_Trying_? You think I haven't been _trying_?"

"I know you have. But what I can't wrap my head around is _now_. What the hell are you doing _now_, Castle?" She holds her hand up, levels him with a glare. "No, shut up. I'm not finished."

He balks back, his open mouth closing, the retort dying on his lips. He runs a hand through his hair, his jaw clenching.

"You say you love me but look how easily you wrote me off, how easily you ran off with someone you barely know without so much as telling me why you've written me off in the first place. You always want the whole story, but with me you don't even ask for my side of it. I'm not Nikki Heat, Rick! You can't just write it in for me!"

She hates that she's on the verge of tears after she says it, hates that when it comes to him, she feels so vulnerable, so fragile. He'd stolen her heart a long time ago and over the course of the past week, he's been smashing it, crumbling it in the palm of his hands and with seemingly no effort at all, and no care, no regret.

Until now. When the first, solitary tear begins it's slow path down her cheek, he feels not only like a fool, but a complete and utter jackass.

"And you wonder why I'm scared of you? Of course I'm scared!" she whimpers, "Because after everything that's happened, after everything we've been through, how could you possibly still think that I don't love you?"

He opens his mouth to respond, a knife through his heart and an apology on his lips, but the words don't get the chance to come out, because someone across the room is calling his name.

"Richard Castle?"

_Shit._

He turns towards the front desk, sees a nurse standing by the door, clipboard in hand, eyes onto the paper and then back up to scan the room. She calls his name again and he holds up his hand, waves her down, then motions to her with his index finger to wait. _Just a minute. Just give me a minute._

Kate is crumpled forward in her seat, face buried in her hands by the time he turns back to her. She's hurt and angry and damn, it's his fault. Both their faults, really.

Had they not been interrupted that day, had he not found out the way he did, if he hadn't run away, if they'd have been able to just speak to each other, they'd have been able to work this all out without the pain, the misunderstanding. Everything was going fine before it all spiraled downhill in a twisted chain of events.

_Fun and uncomplicated_, he had told her. Because while their story thus far has had plenty of moments of fun, it's been hopelessly complicated for years. But now, he realizes, maybe it's not so hopeless after all. Maybe the challenge of those complications, the prize waiting for him, for them, is worth every second of the battle to get there.

The bombing in Boylan Plaza showed him that tomorrow wasn't guaranteed. He'd seen the life drain out of her once before, and tonight, for a terrifying thirty seconds, he'd thought he'd actually lost her.

If tonight has shown him anything, it's that even as angry as he is with her decision, her lie, he still can't bear to lose her. He loves her, and she—

_...how could you possibly still think that I don't love you?_

"Kate," he says, tugging her hands away from her face, gripping her fingers tightly with his own. She doesn't lift her head, doesn't look him in the eyes. Can't. Not yet.

But she looks how they both feel—miserable—chewing on the inside of her cheek, eyes red-rimmed, bloodshot and puffy, though she's barely shed a tear tonight. Bottling everything up is just making it all worse on her in the end.

Her whole body feels like it's quivering from being so worked up, so incredibly frustrated. Something always gets in the way. Every single time. If it's not work, it's something else. Always something—

"Kate," he repeats, moving to kneel down on the floor in front of her, both of their hands now resting upon her lap. She looks down at their fingers tangled together, watches as he gives them a squeeze.

"I promise you we'll come back to this. We'll talk. No more ignoring everything, no more interruptions. Just you and me, and we'll figure this all out, okay?"

She lifts her eyes to his then and sees the hint of a smile on him. A shining ray of hope breaking through their storm.

"So are you still with me?" he asks, a voice light as it could possibly be given the circumstances, but still careful, uncertain.

The nurse calls his name again in a tone that is both a reminder and a warning, and he has to fight the urge to turn around and glare at the woman.

Kate sinks her teeth into her lower lip and finally gives him a perceptible nod.

"Yeah, Castle," she tells him, and with a squeeze of his fingers, a stroke of her thumb over the back of his hand, she stands up, tall. Strong. "Yeah, let's do this."


	4. Chapter 4

The ER nurse assigned to him, _"Debbie"_, she introduces herself as, _"but you can call me Deb,"_ leads them down a short corridor and into the interior of the emergency services wing. This time, they walk side-by-side instead of one in front of the other as they step through doorways. An unspoken, seemingly subconscious compromise.

No one is taking the lead. They're in this together. Partners, as it should be.

At first glance, the ER doesn't appear to be very busy. There's a number of patients in double rooms all by themselves and it seems like the majority of the people inside the emergency wing are just friends or family members of whomever is being treated. A lot of doctors and nurses are just standing around engaging in small talk and there's no chaos or hustle or bustle. Kate takes that as a positive sign.

Under these conditions, it shouldn't take too long for Castle to get a few stitches put in and be on their way out the door, right? The longer they put off the talking, the more uncertain she feels that things will be truly resolved between them.

He was furious with her, that much was clear from his biting words before, but Castle's whole demeanor towards her seems to have taken a 180° turn since the argument. It gives her some hope, but she recognizes that pain and anger of that magnitude isn't going to dissipate so quickly. Of course, she's mad at him, too, for shutting her out, for his lack of faith in her, in them. In the very least, now he knows the truth; knows that he assumed wrong about her feelings towards him. That helps, but she'd be lying to herself if she said that she didn't have lingering doubts or fears swirling around in her head.

As she walks, her heels sound more like they're merely shuffling along the ground rather than the usual click-clack heard when she strides across hard floors. It's close to midnight, and after an agonizing weekend and three full days of work with the tension between them persisting, she's feeling entirely devoid of energy, simply drained of it as though someone has stuck her with a lancet and sapped her vitality away. It probably doesn't help that the only thing that's been in her stomach over the course of the past several hours is some coffee she had at the precinct (which she's had to procure for herself for an entire week) and some shots she had during the drink with Colin.

Vodka. Lots of vodka. It's both a blessing and a curse tonight that she can hold her liquor so well. She had wanted to dull the pain, numb it away, but when that didn't work, it led her on this path, straight back to him. For that, she's grateful, though they still have a long way before things can go back to the way they were.

The way they were? No. There's no going back now, is there? Once they lay down their cards, once they put everything down on the table, it's all going to change, isn't it? Nothing will be the same. Whether that change will be good or bad all depends on if they can manage to move past this colossal, collective hurt.

Once they're led into a room, Castle is ushered into a sitting position on the edge of the bed and Kate takes a seat in a chair on the opposite side of the bed's medical gadgetry. Deb starts the process of checking his vitals, wrapping the blood pressure monitor around his upper arm and letting it go about its business with the press of a button. When she sets the pulse oximeter over his index finger, the beeping signal sounds in rapid succession with his heart rate.

"Do you have a history of hypertension, Mr. Castle?" Deb asks after she scribbles in some numbers on his chart and tugs the cuff off his arm, the velcro tearing apart with a rip.

Both he and Kate startle, sharing a look with one another before turning to Deb, questions in their eyes.

"Uh, not that I know of," he edges warily. "Why? Is there something wrong?"

"It could just be from the injury or something salty you ate this evening, but your blood pressure is elevated," she explains, pointing to the machine with her pen. "You're at 140 over 90."

"Wow."

"Have you been under a lot of stress recently?"

That might be putting it mildly. He risks a glance over at Kate and she's looking guilty as sin, regret and apology both radiating from her green eyes. It stings to see it, and he wishes he could just reach out and hold her in his arms, tell her it's not her fault, but he doesn't. Later, he'd told her. They'd talk about this all later. No distractions, no disruptions. Definitely with no nurses in the room with them.

"I work with the homicide division of the NYPD on a regular basis. It has it's moments," he tells Nurse Deb with a smile, making light of it all in typical Castle fashion. Kate sees right through it, his not-so subtle attempt to set her at ease in light of being unable to address her directly. It doesn't work. Can't. Things just aren't that simple.

Deb continues on with the conversation, completely oblivious to the strained looks being shared between the other two people in the room with her.

"Oh my. Well, I can certainly see how that might affect things, wouldn't it? Especially that bombing last week. We had a few of the injured ones transported here. It was terrible."

Castle's cheery expression drops from his face at the same time Kate's eyes fall shut and she sighs, a ragged, anguished breath of air. The heels of her hands run up the sides of her cheeks, fingertips briefly stroking over her temples before moving on to brush her hair back from her face, palms circling back to her cheeks again.

The complications are just never-ending.

"Yeah," Castle says, this time feigning his smile in order to keep a tight lid on the agony that wants to explode out of him, too. "Yeah, that was a rough one."

Kate's head droops, locks of her hair falling into her face and Castle feels his heart plummet.

This isn't going well at all.

"All right, well I've got all your information here down on the chart. Doctor Wagner will be in to see you shortly. If you need anything at all, just press the call button," the nurse says, still completely oblivious and far too cheerful.

Castle thanks her and once she's out of the room, he curls his legs up onto the bed, throws his head back roughly onto the elevated section of the mattress and very audibly groans out an "Ow" at the pain that shoots through his skull.

"Castle!" Kate hisses, lurching forward in her seat to grab at his shoulder and upper arm, tugging him upright and away from the back of the bed. "Geez, will you be careful? You're in bad enough shape as it is because of—"

"Stop."

He takes it back; it can't wait until later. Not at this rate.

"I know what you're thinking, but don't."

"How can I not? What's going on between us is affecting your health. You're stressed out to the point of high blood pressure because of me."

Castle lets out an exasperated sigh and swings his legs over to the other side of the bed so that he can face her. She looks up at him, fatigued, discontented, wishing things could be different right now. Wishing that every time she opens her mouth to say something, it didn't feel like it was going to make or break them.

"I'm fine, Kate." She rolls her eyes and he scrubs at his face in frustration. "Okay, yeah, we've been at odds for a while but we were just arguing not even ten minutes ago. Of course my blood pressure is up. I bet if we strapped that thing on your arm it'd be the same result for you, too."

"That's really not making me feel any better about this, Castle—"

"My point is..." he says, cutting her off with a wave of his hand, much like she had done to him earlier. "I'm as much at fault in this as you are. We both made some stupid decisions that hurt each other. It's not just you. Not just me."

"It wasn't my intention to hurt you," she says quietly, gripping onto the sleeve of his jacket. "I don't ever want to hurt you."

"I know," he replies, and when she lifts her eyes to give him a disbelieving look, "Well, I do _now_."

She worries the fabric of his jacket between her thumb and forefinger as she gathers her next words. She has to get them right, has to make them count.

"Running away and shutting you out...Look, I know it was stupid, but lying to you—it was the only way I could think of to keep what we have. At least until I was ready to face everything."

He reaches out, uncurling her fingers from his jacket so that he can take her hand and her breath catches in her chest when he runs the pad of his thumb along her knuckle, a soothing caress.

"I'm not gonna say it doesn't still hurt, or that I'm not mad, because it does and I am. I just...I wish you could have trusted me with your heart more and told me everything from the beginning."

She tips her head low, staring at the floor and nods once. She understands that, now more than ever after being on the receiving end of the same thing. He'd done the same to her when he heard her talking to Bobby. He didn't come to her with his thoughts, his feelings. He bottled it all up and ran.

Running doesn't work, doesn't fix anything. Running from their feelings only causes pain, and neither one of them wants to hurt from this anymore.

"I could hardly get through a single day back then without spiraling out, Castle, and I'm not trying to justify or excuse what I did, because it was wrong. I was so wrong. But you have to understand, I thought I was protecting you. Protecting _us_. I couldn't let myself bring you down into that rabbit hole with me. I couldn't ask you flat out to wait when I had no idea how long it'd take for me to be okay again, to work through it all."

"I would have waited, Kate. No matter how long it took, I would have waited for you until you were ready if you'd just told me that that's what you needed."

He cups her cheek with his hand, his fingers brushing along the soft skin beneath her eyes and they flutter shut at his touch.

"You know how I feel about you," he murmurs, and she closes her hand over his, holds him there, nods.

It makes something flutter in her chest when she opens her eyes again and sees the way he looks at her, all warmth and devotion. All love. Seeing it again after being without it for so long makes her realize just how much she's needed him, how much her sense of happiness has become rooted in sharing her life with this man who loves her and whom she loves so dearly. When he's unhappy, she's unhappy, and when he walked away this time, even despite still being physically there but so far removed from her emotionally, the void left in her heart was almost more than she could bear.

She never wants to be apart from him like that again.

"Whatever you need, if it's time, space, whatever, I'll give it to you if that's what it takes. If you want to be with me—"

"I do," she says quickly. "More than anything."

He smiles vibrantly, her words at long last refilling the gaping hole that had been excavated in his heart that day in the observation room. He dips down, descends upon her, but once she's convinced that he's intent on hugging her, or kissing her, she's really not sure which, she twists at the last second, turns her head away from him. His nose touches to her cheek instead, a feather-light touch.

"Wait," she warns, and he lingers, unmoving.

"Kate," her name tumbles from his mouth in a soft plea of confusion but she shakes her head side to side, her brows tightly knit, her expression strained.

"Don't. Not here."

He cradles her face between both of his palms, tilting her back to face him and she melts into him, bumping her forehead to his, their breaths mingling in soft exhalations. She tips her head slightly into one of his hands to look up at him somberly from just a breath away.

"I'm gonna lose it, Castle. If someone walks in here...if something else gets in the way again, I'm just going to lose it."

He grins, chuckles at her even, and although it irritates her that he's finding her aggravation endearing, it's still the most uplifting thing she's seen or heard from him in almost two weeks. She's missed that smile, that laugh. He looks like himself again, not the façade he'd been walking around as recently.

"Maybe we can take it in bite-size pieces for now," he says softly, "Just until we can get around to the whole enchilada."

She tries to suppress a smile at his use of the idiom in this context but sniffs a laugh when he starts waggling his eyebrows at her, giving her that goofy and ridiculous grin of his. To his surprise and joyous elation, she turns into his hand and brushes her lips to the heel of his palm, a ghost of a kiss to his skin.

"I-I uh...I'll take that as a yes?" he stammers. How easily she can turn him from so bold to simply a puddle in just a single touch. She'd feel empowered by it if she weren't so scared and on edge about everything between them still.

"I am kind of hungry," she murmurs against his skin, turning her eyes back to him, affectionate and alluring all at once. "I guess I could settle for a couple of bites."

He gapes at her a moment, but when she looks up at him through her eyelashes and flashes him that come-hither smile, her beautiful eyes shining now in a manner unlike anything he's seen on her before, Castle finds himself unable to hold back any longer. God he loves her. He inwardly kicks himself because it's true what she said before—how did he convince himself into thinking that this woman all but loved him?

How, when she's looking at him like _that_?

"Kate, I don't think I can wait anymore," he confesses suddenly, his breath coming out faster, his heart racing in his chest with need, desire. "I don't want to wait anymore."

Her gaze softens upon him and she nuzzles into his cheek with her nose, eyes falling shut and just letting herself revel in the warmth of his skin on hers, his scent enveloping her senses. It's been so long since they've been this close. Close enough to feel, close enough to touch.

"You won't have to," she promises, palming his cheek, feeling his faint stubble as the pads of her fingers trace down to his chin, back up his jawline. He shivers at her touch, sucks in a breath when her lips graze the shell of his ear, a soft whisper. "No more waiting."

She doesn't have to tell him twice. He stands, tugs her to her feet and wraps her in his arms, his grip on her so tight that he can feel the pounding of her heart in her chest, beating in time against his own. Kate embraces him, holding onto him desperately as though they are two lovers who had been separated for years and have just been reunited at the end of a long journey.

He buries his nose into her hair, taking in her familiar and all-too enticing scent, then he pulls back, a look of urgency on his face.

"Kate I-," he starts, and in that fraction of a second, she can see the words forming on his tongue, "I lo—"

Framing his face with her hands, she swallows his words down, capturing his lips to silence him in a forceful kiss. It's over much too soon for his liking, but god she just kissed him and you'll hear no complaints from him on that front. He sways a little, has to grip onto her to steady himself, keep his balance.

"Shhh," she shushes him, her mouth still entirely too close for him to focus on much else. "Bite-sized, Castle. Bite-sized, remember?"

"R-right," he says breathlessly. He subconsciously licks his lips and tastes the cherry=flavored lip gloss left in the wake of her mouth on his. Her velvet-soft, luscious mouth. It's going to be a long night in this emergency room waiting to taste her again.

"That would be the rest of the enchilada, wouldn't it?" he says finally, chuckling nervously.

She nods, smiling sweetly at him. "Yes, it would."

"But you know, Kate. You know."

The smile on her face blooms even brighter and she presses on his shoulders, guiding him back to a seated position on the bed. Leaning down, her lips feather a kiss at the corner of his mouth, quick but tender.

"Yeah, Castle," she whispers, running her thumb across his lower lip to wipe away the remnants of her lip gloss this time. "I know."


	5. Chapter 5

"You're kidding."

"Nope."

"Three stars?"

"Three stars. Look."

Kate holds up her iPhone and sure enough, there's three yellow stars and a shiny golden egg displaying the words 'NEW HIGHSCORE' on her screen.

"What the...86820! You got 86820 points?"

Castle peers down at his own phone and his measly score of 74020 on level 1-14. He'd only gotten two stars but somehow Kate managed three in only two attempts. She grins up at him, admittedly a little proud of herself and her accomplishment of beating his score by over 12000 points.

"Face it, Castle. You might have me beat at the original Angry Birds, but I'm way better at Angry Birds Space." With a tap of the green button, she continues on to the next level and with another swipe of her index finger, sends more black Firebomb birds flying at the green pigs orbiting in space.

He slumps back on the bed with a huff, his arms crossed over his chest. Yeah, he's being pouty and somewhat of a poor loser, but his partner is effortlessly kicking his ass at his new favorite game—which she only just downloaded to her own phone not even ten minutes ago—and he's stuck watching her school him at it in a hospital room while waiting for a doctor that has yet to show up.

He's pretty sure he can get a pass for childishness over video games tonight, all things considered.

"At least I've still got you beat at Cut the Rope," he says finally, after a moment of sulking. He leans over and watches as Kate smirks when another one of her carefully launched birds explodes on screen, taking out all three pigs in level 1-15 with a single hit. She gets a score of 41000, and upon comparison to his screen, it beats his 38890. He groans.

"And I still have you at Fruit Ninja," she says, not even looking up at him.

"Only because your fingers are so much smaller than mine! It's so hard for me to avoid the bombs! Not even fair. I have to play on an iPad to be on even footing with you."

She's laughing at him now. _Laughing at him. _Playing games on their phones was supposed to help pass the time, help keep them preoccupied with something other than the burning questions on both of their minds. Neither of them wants to dive into the rest of the talk they promised to have until they're out of the hospital and away from all the potential disruptions, but it's been almost an hour since Nurse Deb left and still no Dr. Wagner.

Where's that doctor so he can be put out of his misery already? He's not too keen on watching Kate continue to beat his high scores one at a time.

"Want me to show you how I did it?" she asks gently, touching her palm to his forearm.

"No," he growls back, tossing his phone beside him on the bed.

"Okay."

Kate exits the game and sets her phone down beside his then sits back in her chair, watching him. Suddenly she finds herself recalling a conversation from her youth in which her mother told her that she needed to let the neighbor boys win occasionally at things—only occasionally—just so she wouldn't grind their masculinity completely into the ground.

She also recalls the time her mother encouraged her to beat the pants off of one boy because he kept antagonizing her at the park by saying that girls couldn't play baseball. At the end of the day, he ran home crying because she whooped him so bad in the game with all their friends. He couldn't even get a base hit with her pitching, and when she was placed in the outfield, she either caught every ball he hit or threw it back fast enough to get him tagged out.

_Such a nice memory,_ she muses to herself with a pleasant smile. Here she is today, still kicking ass in predominantly male worlds—as a cop, as a fighter, hell, even as a player of video games.

Her mother would certainly be proud.

Castle swings his legs over and gets off the bed, walking over to the doorway leading out of the room. He stands there, observing the rest of the emergency wing, watching the nurses and doctors pace by, not even batting an eye at him whilst they go about their work and small talk. The clock above the nurses station reveals a time of 12:52am, meaning that they've been in Langone for around ninety minutes now, give or take.

He's had his share of emergency room visits over the years. Between his own reckless antics and some overreactions with Alexis when she was a baby and toddler, he's no stranger to the place. Whenever Alexis would cough, sneeze or take a spill, he'd be in the first cab to the hospital to have her checked out, even if she otherwise was acting fine. Some trips had taken four hours or more of waiting around in the lobby or inside a room, so he really shouldn't be so surprised with the current state of affairs. This time, however, he's very anxious to leave. This time, he has a very important matter to attend to once he leaves.

The wound on his head isn't the only wound in the room needing mending.

Okay, and he wants to feel Kate Beckett's delicate lips crushed against his again so very, very badly.

He briefly hears the clack of heels before feeling her presence behind him, chest huddled loosely at his back, one of her hands coming to rest just above his hip bone, the fingers of the other curling around his upper arm as it hangs at his side. She'd kissed him earlier—twice—so the innocent touches to his person and crowding into his personal space really shouldn't be so captivating to him, but he can't help but feel the weight and intimacy of it all. It's just...

She's being so open now. About her feelings, her love for him. She hasn't said much on the matter yet, but it's like her touches, pure as they may be, have suddenly become a stake of claim on what belongs to her. Him. It's like she's claiming him. _You belong to me._

It feels amazing to him. She's amazing, and he's all hers if that's what she wants.

Kate peers around his shoulder into the hall and when she looks up at him, her cheek brushes along his shoulder. He's got that characteristic glint in his eye, so she knows there's something on his mind, but she says nothing, just meets his eyes and waits him out on it.

"Doctors and nurses are good at math, right?" he says after a moment.

She tilts her head inquisitively, not following his train of thought. He continues on.

"That's a requirement in their education and all, right? Lots of math classes. High-level math classes. "

"Yeah. Pre-med and nursing students typically take calculus, statistics and so on."

"And they both have horrible handwriting."

Kate laughs. He must be so bored and impatient that it's crazy Castle-theory time. All right, she'll bite, humor him a bit. Could be entertaining.

"Lanie's isn't so bad, but for the sake of the discussion I'll go with yes. Where are you going with this, Castle? Some theory on secret medical school training? Are the doctors plotting to take over the world?"

"Don't you see it?" he says, like it's the most obvious thing. He turns his head, finds Kate at his side looking right back up at him, studying him curiously. "If they're good in math but have horrible handwriting—"

He waits a beat, as though he's expecting her to finish his sentence but she's still completely lost. He sighs.

"C'mon Beckett. They must be terrible at linguistics!"

"I find that hard to believe when they have to learn and be able to pronounce all sorts of scientific terms and medical jargon," she replies simply.

"Haven't you ever watched a spelling bee? Even kids can master some of those complicated words."

Kate rubs at her neck, lets out a little sigh. So much for the crazy theorizing being fun. Now it's just making her head spin.

"Castle, I really have no clue where you're headed with this. Care to fill me in already?"

"Okay, so maybe they're good with complicated words, but with simpler vocabulary? Awful."

"How do you figure that?"

"That nurse said 'shortly', and here we are, almost an hour later, still waiting. If you're good at math, you should be able to calculate time no problem, but if you suck at vocabulary, I can see how one would easily confuse the word 'shortly' with 'we're going to make you wait a long-ass time'."

She gapes at his deadpanned look, and then her face scrunches with a bemused smile. She leans her head into him on a laugh then tugs on him, arm and waist, pulling him backward with her.

"All right, Castle. Back to bed with you. I think that bump on your head may have knocked a screw loose after all."

"I'm just so tired of waiting," he mutters, begrudgingly complying and sitting back down on the edge of the bed.

"I know you are" she says softly, and he catches her hand, tugging her to him before she gets the chance to sit back down in her chair.

She raises an eyebrow at him as his knees come to straddle along either side of her, a light pressure on her legs to hold her there, but then he's sighing out her name, dipping his forehead against her abdomen and releasing her hand to curl his fingers into the belt loops of her jeans, another means of holding her close, keeping her near.

Kate runs a hand over his cheek, around the shell of his ear before carding her fingers through his hair, mindful of the injury site that, to her relief, doesn't appear to have gotten any worse during the wait time.

"Maybe you should lie down and try to get some rest, Castle."

"Tired of waiting, not tired-tired," he quips back, and she can feel his hot breath permeating through her sweater when he lets out a puff of air against her stomach. It makes her insides twist and melt at the sensation.

Castle tilts back, lifts his eyes to find her gazing down at him as her fingers continue to brush through his copper locks. "You, on the other hand, look exhausted, Kate."

She knows she does. She is. Her makeup is hiding it somewhat, but there's dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep and poor quality of it when she actually gets any. She can't even remember the last time she had a decent meal. Breakfast for the past week has mostly just been coffee with the occasional danish, she's skipped lunch several times and it's been takeout for dinner, not having the energy to cook for herself once she's gone home at night. She's physically, mentally and emotionally drained. From work, from him, from all of it.

Kate curls her fingers around his ear, her palm cupping his cheek, thumb smoothing the wrinkles at the corner of his eye. "I'll be okay," she murmurs, and he wishes he could believe it.

"Come here," he says then, giving her a little downward tug. She resists, pursing her lips and giving him a look of displeasure (she doesn't want to be coddled) but he persists.

"I'm not going to let some doctor find me sitting in your lap when he comes in, Castle."

"Hey, now there's an idea." His eyes go bright and she dreads to hear the rest of it.

"Dare I ask?"

"Oh, you know. With our luck, once you're in my loving embrace and smothering me with kisses—"

"Writer's imagination getting away with you, I see," she mutters, giving him a tug on his collar.

"—he'll be on his way in, thereby disrupting us, as is the status quo. But this time we use it to our advantage since the sooner he comes in, the sooner we'll be on our way out of here." He waggles his eyebrow at her then gestures to his thigh. "So, let's beat the system."

She rolls her eyes, shaking her head and suppressing a smile, but she won't relent. He has a point, after all. With their luck, they probably _would _be disrupted, and she's had about enough of that lately.

"Come on."

"No."

"_Kaaate_," he whines. Actually whines at her. Such a child, this man.

"I'm not doing it, Castle."

"Okay, you don't have to sit in my lap but how about just one little nibble?"

She gawks at him a second. Nibble? Oh. _Ohhh_. Damn him. The 'enchilada' thing again. Now she really can't stop the smile from erupting on her face.

"Please?" he persists, not at all above begging at this point but she can hear the amusement in his voice. He's loving every bit of this exchange, whether she gives in or not.

"You really are ridiculous, you know that?" she scolds, flicking his cheek with her finger. He winces but grins at her.

"And yet you love me anyway."

There's a stutter to her heart after he says it, and something clenches in her chest at the way his eyes almost seem to twinkle when the words leave his mouth, how his lips curve up to smile but twitch nervously as though he's still unsure, still not certain if he's pushing too far too soon on the feelings side of things.

And maybe he is. Maybe she's still a little terrified to admit everything out loud, but after a week of him believing that she felt nothing for him, after three days of him parading around another woman and barely giving her a second thought—

In what feels like a flash of lightning's time lapse to him, her lips are on his, teeth grazing then nipping at his lower lip, her tongue quickly following suit to soothe the ache left in their wake. He grabs at her hand after it lands on his neck, needing something, anything, to hold onto as she assaults his senses, sends his mind spinning. His grip on her loosens once she begins threading her fingers within his.

It occurs to him then, when he registers the upward curl of her lips on his, that she knows exactly what she's doing to him, that she's enjoying every second of doing it, and the knowledge allows him to recompose himself, launch his counter-attack.

Kate shudders as his tongue slips past the seam of her lips, and she moans into his mouth as his tongue curls against hers in a delicate dance that tastes like the remnants of coffee, alcohol, and a flavor so inherently them; something that hasn't be tasted since a night in an alleyway so long ago.

She pulls away from him seeking air, slamming her free hand down hard against the spot where clavicle meets trapezius muscle, holding him back.

"Hell of a _little nibble_, Castle," she pants, wishing she could smack him upside the head to knock the absurd grin off his face.

"Had to make sure we thoroughly tested my theory," he explains, trying hard to keep a straight face but ultimately failing miserably at it.

"Mm, I'd say that was thorough, all right."

"Deserves a second trial, wouldn't you say?"

She sinks her teeth into her lip, a failed suppressor for the smile that's already all over her features and he lifts from the bed, tangling his fingers into her other hand, too, then pulling her flush against him. Their noses bump and hot breath billows between them as he inches in, intent on claiming her expectant mouth again.

Before he gets close enough, there's a light rapping on the open door to the room, coupled with the deep and far-too-energetic-for-this-hour voice of a man who is, presumably, the elusive Dr. Wagner.

"Richard Castle, huh?" the doctor says, perusing through the information on the chart and not paying any attention to the people in the room yet. "Not every day we get a famous novelist in our doors here."

"As if on cue," Kate whispers, disentangling her fingers from Castle's to push him back down to a seated position. She almost sounds amused this time, not irritated.

He frowns at her when she gives him a couple sympathetic pats on the shoulder.

"Buck up, Castle," she murmurs, giving him a playful smile and setting her hand over his knee as she sits. "We proved your theory."

"Now I'm wishing we hadn't," he mutters, claiming her fingers with his again. She laces them together, gives his a light squeeze.

"Patience, dear boy. Just a little longer and I'm all yours."

Patience, right. He can be a patient patient.

Especially for a promise like that.


	6. Chapter 6

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Castle. I'm Dr. Wagner."

The doctor is an older man with graying hair and wrinkles abound. If Castle had to guess, he'd place him somewhere around his mid to late-sixties. Despite his age, he carries himself with an aura of vigor. You can tell by the ease of which he strolls into the room and gets down to business, the way he carries himself, that he's been at this job a long time and still enjoys it to this very day.

Dr. Wagner holds his hand out to Castle and they shake with a strong, firm grip and matching smiles.

"Please, call me Rick," Castle replies, sincere and friendly. He finds that the good doctor's demeanor allows him to be more forgiving about the interruption between himself and his lovely muse moments earlier. That quick-to-forgive notion doesn't go unnoticed by said muse, who hides an amused smile beneath her hand.

"Rick, then." Dr. Wagner glances over to Kate just to the side of them and a smile appears on his face as he looks her over with a sense of familiarity. Her smile drops, a little unnerved by the the expression staring back at her. She shifts in her seat.

"And this must be your Nikki Heat."

Oh. So that's what it is. He recognizes her.

"It would appear I have a fan treating me today. I feel better already," Castle says happily, grinning at his partner.

She purses her lips, bobs her head a couple times at him. It's been quite a while since his narrow fame has followed them out in public. Now that she thinks of it, there's been no rumors or speculation about a budding romance between them showing up on Page Six or the New York Ledger in, well, years. Which is actually quite amusing, Kate finds, since they've grown so much closer in recent years

Then again, maybe after all of her adamant denials and the times she angrily forced Castle's hand and made him clear up everything with the press on the numerous occasions when an article would crop up, the gossip columns just gave up on them? Not that she's complaining. Not at all.

Dr. Wagner has recognized the two of them so that's something, and Castle seems thrilled about it, naturally, but she'll gladly stay out of the spotlight, happy to keep her private life private.

"I'll admit I'm not much of a reader myself, but my wife, Myrna, she loves your books. Big fan," Dr. Wagner explains to Castle. "I know just about all of the plots in the Storm and Heat books from her gushing about them alone. We're eagerly awaiting the film adaptation of Heat Wave."

He turns to Kate then, extending his hand out to her. "I apologize for before. You must be sick of the Nikki Heat comments directed at you all the time. You're detective—"

"Beckett," Kate supplies, shaking his hand gingerly. "Kate Beckett. And it's fine. Doesn't bother me so much anymore."

Castle gives her an 'oh really?' sort of look and she throws him back a smile that even encompasses her eyes. She has to look away from him to keep from blushing when he grins back at her so affectionately.

"Detective Beckett, right. I recall seeing you in _Cosmo _a couple years back."

Kate looks up to the doctor at that, eyes wide. Wow. That was...so long ago. Those were certainly different times then, weren't they? The _Cosmo _picture was taken when she and Castle were on the outs for the first time, when he had initially looked into her mother's case and told her his findings. She was furious with him, wanted him gone.

She can't imagine how life would have been since then had they not reconciled. It seems unfathomable. It pains her to even think about it.

"Much more beautiful in person, am I right?" Castle says animatedly and the doctor gives a smile and a nod.

He's beaming at her now, and Kate can't help it. She knows she's blushing, can feel the burn in her cheeks and the sensation creeping at her neck. She smiles shyly at both men then nods her head appreciatively at the compliment.

Her partner has described her as many things over the years, including "hot", but hearing him refer to her as beautiful—it's not just some comment thrown out flirtatiously by him. It's laced with something else, suffused with so much feeling that it leaves her breathless.

Fortunately for her, Dr. Wagner is keen to get started in fixing up Castle, taking the focus off of her and back to the more important matter at hand. She finds her ability to breathe air again and composes herself, watches quietly as the men talk.

"So, I hear you've managed to get quite the gash on your head, hm?"

Castle chuckles nervously. "Little bit."

Dr. Wagner pulls a pair of sterile gloves out from a drawer on the back wall, snaps them onto his hands and circles back to Castle. "Let's have a look, shall we?"

Castle tilts his head forward a bit so that the light can hit the back of his head and Dr. Wagner gives a little hum as he brushes the hair around and examines his scalp.

"Not too big, but you'll definitely be requiring a few stitches for this one. Did the injury occur while on the job? Get hit over the head with a weapon of some sort?"

Castle grimaces. "No, just uh...my own clumsiness." Liar. "Slammed into an overhead light in the morgue."

Not exactly the truth but it will suffice. He and Kate would both probably be laughing over the situation with his head—because come on, it _is _slightly ridiculous and _so _Castle to be skull-bashing into a light in the morgue—but given the circumstances leading up to the injury, it's hard to laugh it all off. The sight of her on that slab had seriously scared the hell out of him and she knows it. He still shudders just at the thought of it.

"Huh. Well, I suppose if there's ever a place in the city to crack your head open at, the most sterile building in New York City would be the one, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess it would be." The doctor and Castle share a laugh. He hadn't thought about it that way. He's seen Perlmutter eating full meals and Lanie snacking throughout the day in there on many occasions. Unless there's a fresh body still untouched, the room is always kept immaculately clean.

"Is he going to need any tests run to check for internal damage, Doctor?" Kate chimes in suddenly, and for the first time, Castle actually hears worry in her voice. Maybe it's just now hitting her with the doctor here, but she truly does hide her feelings expertly well when she wants to.

Dr. Wagner pulls out a flashlight and shines the light in each of Castle's eyes, checking his pupils for normal dilation and contraction to light.

"Follow my finger with your eyes please, Rick." He holds up his index finger, moving it side to side.

"Whoa, where'd it go?" Castle blinks exaggeratedly, turning his head the opposite direction and up toward the ceiling. Dr. Wagner gapes at him and Kate smacks Castle on the arm. Hard.

"Would you stop fooling around? This is serious."

"Is he always like this?" The doctor asks on a laugh.

She glares at her partner. "Yes."

Castle frowns, rubbing the spot where she'd hit him. "Hey, I'm injured enough already."

"Follow his finger, Castle." It's not a request.

Master of observation that he is, Castle knows not to try her patience and he follows Dr. Wagner's finger with no issue.

"Did you lose consciousness at all?" Castle shakes his head. "Any dizziness, trouble walking, nausea, loss of memory?"

Castle looks to Kate and she shrugs, shakes her head. She didn't notice any trouble. He's been acting fine.

"No. Other than a headache, I'm good."

"Well, you don't meet the criteria for a concussion but I would still like to run a CT. Some injuries can be asymptomatic, but usually they're so minor that they don't require any treatment at all."

"But better to be on the safe side." Kate offers and the doctor nods.

"I personally just prefer the more cautious route when it comes to head injuries. You just never can be sure sometimes."

"How long will it take to get the test done and the results back?" Castle asks.

"Ballpark estimate...we can get you to radiology in about twenty minutes, but it might be another hour to ninety minutes for the results."

Castle groans.

"And if I were to, say, check out AMA after the scan, you could just notify me if I need to bring my bleeding brain back in, right?" Castle says tentatively with a devious grin and Dr. Wagner laughs.

"Castle!" Kate scowls at him.

"I'm assuming we're pressed for time here," the doctor surmises. Castle nods emphatically, despite Kate elbowing him sharply in the arm. "As your doctor, I should be firmly advising you _against _going against my advice, but yes, we could do that."

He sees Kate giving him an unpleasant look now, too, so he addresses her concerns.

"Honestly, we get injuries much worse than your partner here has on a regular basis and most of them need nothing more than stitches. I always recommend the scan to check for absolute certainty, especially for specific age groups, but more than likely we're just looking at a bump on the head here. Nothing serious. As long as he's acting fine and has someone to keep an eye on him tonight, you should be good to go."

Kate lets out a breath and Castle nudges her with his arm, a wordless way of saying _'See, it's fine.'_ She's still not too happy with him about this but she can tell how eager he is to get going. In all honesty, she is too, but she'd feel a lot better knowing for certain that he's okay.

They need more bumps in the road like holes in the head at this point.

* * *

><p>"Hold my hand."<p>

"Castle, you're not a child."

"Please hold my hand?"

"Fine, fine. I can't stand to see you keep making that face."

And so she holds his hand while he's being stitched up. Not because he's in any pain—the local anesthetic took care of that—but because he keeps squirming and cringing and otherwise just looks like he's in need of some moral support to get through the whole ordeal.

"Don't judge. I can't help it," he says, giving Kate a pleading look. "It just feels _weird_. Like, I can't feel anything, but I can feel _something _tugging and—_ugh I hate this_."

"You've never had stitches before?" Somehow she finds that hard to believe.

"Not in my head!"

Kate rolls her eyes and just shakes her head at him. She can't help the smile though when his fingers clench hers hard with every sensation he feels that is outside of his comfort zone. Such a big baby. If the boys were around, he'd be playing up the tough guy act. With just her in the room, besides Dr. Wagner and Nurse Deb, who has come back for the assist, he could really care less about posturing and bravado. He's milking the injury for everything he can get out of her and, despite being fully aware of this, she's letting him get away with it anyway.

For now.

She's thankful for them to have been met with such a good-humored doctor that finds their incessant bickering and general behavior toward one another entertaining. Had his personality been closer to Lanie's or, God forbid, Perlmutter's, this would have been an even more tortuous night. Instead, Dr. Wagner feels more like an old friend, perhaps a little like Castle even.

She imagines the doc will be headed home to his wife at some point in the morning and will tell her all about the writer and his muse bantering away like Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook in the ER all night. For some reason, she finds the whole idea rather heartwarming instead of dreadful.

"That ought to do it, folks. You're home free. Deb will have your discharge papers and care instructions in a few minutes but the gist of it is no driving for the next 24 hours and keep those sutures away from any water for the next three days. I'm going to send you home with a prescription for low-dose ibuprofen to help with any pain and swelling. Try to sleep on your side if you can so as not to aggravate the area, and, of course, keep your head away from any lightheads in the future, huh?"

They thank Dr. Wagner for all of his help and after Nurse Deb reappears with the paperwork, Castle hastily makes for escape, tugging Kate in tow by the hand that he's reclaimed. She doesn't put up a fight about it. In fact, she laces her fingers with his, snuggles her cheek into his shoulder and braces for the cold night air when they step out the doors of Langone's emergency room.

They stroll wordlessly, almost aimlessly down the street for a few minutes before Kate speaks up.

"Where'd you park the Ferrari?"

"The usual spot. I didn't see your cruiser there."

"I took a cab."

"This late at night?"

_Yeah, about that..._

"I uh, had a few drinks. Before I came here."

_Here _being the morgue, which she's still not sure what her intentions were in making the trip anyway. Alcohol-induced decision, probably. She hadn't gone there with the intention of spilling everything to Lanie. She just didn't want to go home and sulk all by herself over Castle again.

"Oh." Well that would certainly explain the taste of vodka in her mouth when he kissed her. Funny he didn't think to ask about it before. "So you went out for drinks with Lanie after work?"

"Hunt invited me out."

The drink with Hunt was cordial, if there was any appropriate word for it. It wasn't a date. He seemed to show interest in her but she was far too stuck on Castle's behavior towards her that Colin Hunt was hardly a blip on the radar. He was grieving the loss of a friend and she was mourning the loss of the Castle she once knew.

They ordered a couple drinks, he shared more stories about Naomi and carefully avoided any discussions about work that might bring up the topic of Castle. He saw her glance back at the writer before declining his invitation, but then she called him and there she was, moping out of the 12th and meeting him for a drink anyways. It didn't take a detective to notice that she was nursing a broken heart and just needed to get out and take her mind off things for a little while.

She has nothing to feel guilty or ashamed about with her actions, and yet somehow she feels like she's betrayed him even more somehow.

Castle jerks them to a quick stop, Kate being halted by the hand holding steadfastly to hers when he stopped walking. His grip tightens on her. She knew this wouldn't go over well with him.

"I thought he was heading back to London? He left the 12th before you did."

"Yeah, he was. I mean, he did go back and leave before me. He asked me before he left and I told him no, at first, so he left."

She looks him in the eye and it's like that's all that needs to be said. Castle picks up on it immediately.

"Shit. Because of me, isn't it?" Castle groans, releases her so that the heel of his hands press into his forehead. "When I left you, you took him up on it."

"Yeah," she breathes out, and then they both fall silent.

After a brief moment, Castle finally starts moving again, linking his arm with hers this time to pull her in closer to his side as they walk.

"I'm an idiot."

"Castle, don't—"

"No, I am. You've been trying to get through to me, multiple times, over the past few days but I kept brushing you off. I was more focused on keeping up the charade that I didn't even give you a chance. I wanted to pretend everything was fine. Like I was fine. But I wasn't, Kate. I was in agony."

It's Kate this time that pulls them to a stop. She throws her arms around his neck and he encircles her waist with his own.

"God, it hurt. It hurt so much when I heard you say it to that kid."

"I'm sorry, Castle." She feels the tears coming on, stinging at her eyes. "I'm so sorry."

"Everything I came up with in my head for why you'd lie to me, why you'd keep it from me for so long, none of it was any good. Everything just led me to the same conclusions. That you didn't feel the same way about me, that you were embarrassed of me—"

"God, Castle, no. No, no." She shakes her head insistently against his neck and he pulls her tighter against his chest as he speaks.

"I was just so stunned, I couldn't think straight. I thought I was delusional. That after all this time I was just kidding myself, that nothing had changed." He pulls back to meet her eyes shining back at him, welled up with moisture just waiting to fall. It's only when she runs her hand up his cheek, her thumb swiping under his eyes that he realizes he was the first one to break down.

"It's not the same as it was in the beginning," her voice comes out a strangled sound that rips him to the core. "Everything has changed, Castle. Everything. I fought it. God, I've fought it for so long but I can't do it anymore. I can't pretend I don't feel anything when everything I feel now is for you."

"Kate—"

"You drive me crazy, Rick Castle. You always have and you probably always will, but I don't care. I am so in love with you, and I'm not willing to waste another second of my life without you in it. Without you knowing just how much you mean to me."


	7. Chapter 7

Before she even knows what's hit her, she's off her feet, crushed against his chest and spinning through the air, the loose curls of her hair whipping around wildly behind her like a checkered flag being waved at the end of a race.

She certainly feels like a winner right about now after everything that's happened in the past several hours, or really, the past three days. Down in the dumps to flying sky high...Oh, but Earth to Beckett: your partner really shouldn't be moving around like this. He's still under the effects of the anesthetic and has a good portion of his skull numbed. Not a good idea.

"Castle!" she yells, reality of the situation coming back to her, sinking in. His name tumbles forth as both a startled shriek and a laugh. She tries to be more stern. "Stop! Put me down! Your head— "

"I feel fine!" he croons delightfully, and then, with a grin, corrects himself. "No, make that amazing. I feel amazing."

She has the urge to quip back that it's just the pain meds and anesthetic talking but that thought dies on her lips once she gets a good look at his face. He's stopped spinning at least but he's still holding her by the waist, the toes of her boots hanging just inches from the sidewalk, and he's laughing, beaming at her with a radiant smile.

Completely and utterly happy.

"And you," he says, tipping his head toward her, the intonation of his voice a much lower octave. She bites her lip, the corners of her mouth curling up and back down, the makings of a smile held hostage by her teeth. Her eyebrows lift, gesturing him to go on and he bumps his forehead to hers.

"Say it again, Kate."

"Put me...down?" she replies tentatively.

"No, not—Before that. What you said before."

"Stop?"

He groans and then he sees the little half smile, half smirk on her face. Is she...teasing him? She is. She's teasing him. Her teeth are sinking into both of her lips again to bite back the smile, the laugh, but it's impossible to contain and all over her face. Dead giveaway.

"_Kaaate_," he drawls out, finally setting her back down to the ground.

She sniffs a laugh, smiling as she plays with a button on his red, tailored shirt. He looks so dashingly good in it, especially out in the moonlight at this early morning hour. He keeps his hands firmly planted along her hips, holding her close as though she's given some sort of subtle indication that she needs to move away from him.

Silly man.

On the contrary, she's quite content to be where she is right now. No place she'd rather be, really. Well, that's not exactly true. She could do without being in the middle of the sidewalk on 1st Avenue in the middle of the night, but as long as she's with him, time and location is the least of her worries. All that matters is he's here now, they're together, and he's so abundantly happy again.

It makes her happy again.

The heels of her shoes aren't quite as high tonight, leaving her below his eye level by an inch or two and though she can see his smile, she has to look up at him through her lashes to really catch his eyes. Despite her slightly puffy and red-rimmed, glimmering eyes and tear-stained cheeks, everything in her countenance expresses anything but sadness. These tears shed are no longer tears of frustration or of sadness. They're tears of joy.

He lifts a hand to her cheek, runs a knuckle down the drying trail of one such tear and she leans into his hand, into him.

"I love you," she murmurs, pressing a kiss to the inside of his wrist, feeling his skin ripple against her lips at the touch.

"That's not what you said," he gruffs back, a little accusingly, moving his hand lower, stroking the soft skin along her jaw. She purses her lips.

"Don't get cheeky now." She gives him a little pinch with her thumb and forefinger right on his cheek and he winces on a smile. "Maybe I won't say it again."

"Oh, you better, or I'll have to get sappy and say it enough for the both of us. Everywhere and all the time, so much that you'll get sick of it."

Something lights in her eyes after he says it, a glint of something hopeful and of excitement, and then her nose is pressed to his, her eyes flicking from his eyes to his lips and back again.

"Then tell me again, Castle." It's an airy, hot whisper of breath against his cheek that makes his eyes flutter and body shiver. So sexy, that voice of hers. Does she have any idea what it does to him? She must. And even if she didn't before, she certainly does now with how his body is reacting in response to her words.

He tips his head down, mouth hovering above hers as he whispers to her.

"I love you, Kate."

When she smiles that all-encompassing smile again, he closes the distance between them, sealing his mouth over hers. Her lips are cool to the touch in the night air but not for long, not with the way he works them over, gentle, reverent, and so much more intimate than any kiss with her before. It's not long before she opens to him, seeking out the warmth of his mouth with her own and he groans as he drinks her in, a sweet, succulent taste he can't get enough of.

She breaks away from him first, her hand falling from his cheek, dragging down his chest until it rests just over his heart, the muscle beating steadfastly within his thoracic cavity. Castle's eyes open lazily and he takes her in, all smiles and admiration on her face as she watches him recover.

"You okay?" she teases, thumbing at the fabric of his shirt. His mouth opens, closes, searching for words.

"Have dinner with me," he blurts out finally, voice breathless and husky and perhaps a little love drunk from the kiss, but he doesn't want the night to end and...great, she's laughing at him again.

"Now what?" he asks hotly and she can't help it, she's amused by his quick temper under the circumstances. It's sort of...cute? Because she knows exactly how to fix it. One press of her lips to his, a lingering, chaste kiss, and his furrowed brow unfurls straight away.

"In case you've forgotten, O' Injured One," she says against his lips, "It's two-thirty in the morning."

"Oh. Right. Well, breakfast then." He gets another amused look from her for that. "Two hours post-midnight snack? Whatever." He snatches both of her hands in his, tugs them to his chest. His face goes serious. "I don't care, Kate. Just come home with me."

His pleading look leaves words echoing in her mind from a memory that feels so distant now: _Stay with me._ _Don't leave me._

She pulls her hands from his. "No, Castle."

His expression goes blank and he thinks his heart has plummeted to the floor until she's folding her arms around his neck and pulling him for a hug. Her nose burrows into the crook of his neck, nuzzling at his skin before she tip-toes for more height. His arms stiffen at his sides as her lips graze his earlobe.

"No more distractions," she whispers to him softly.

He swallows hard at the lump in his throat. No distractions. Of course. They owe each other that, and he promised her that. How could he forget that his mother and Alexis are home? Neither of whom are her biggest fans presently, given how they believe she's broken his heart. Not that she knows that, nor does he plan to let her know that. He needs to speak with them and clear the air first before bringing her around his family again.

"Right. No distractions," he agrees, nodding against her, circling his arms about her waist again. "So where?" he asks, though excluding his home really leaves only one other option in his mind. He doesn't have to wait long for her response.

"My place," she murmurs, settling into his shoulder, into his embrace. "Come home with _me_."

* * *

><p>Kate's apartment in SoHo is roughly three miles from the OCME, and without any traffic at just after 2:30am, they make it there in no time at all. She'd considered walking it since he's not allowed to drive per doctor's orders and she'd had those drinks earlier in the evening but he was adamant about taking his car. She's never been one to be an irresponsible driver but she was feeling fine, Castle insisted she was perfectly sober and he suddenly didn't want them to be out on the streets of New York City so late. God only knows they've come across many a crime scene with a murder taking place at this very hour of the night.<p>

"You do realize I have a gun, right?" she reminded him, but he was undeterred. By that point, she opted against mentioning that statistically speaking, they might be more likely to be faced with an attempted carjacking due to thugs wanting his Ferrari rather than a random mugging on the street.

It's stuffy and warm inside her apartment after no air circulation throughout the day and Castle immediately shucks off his jacket and helps Kate with hers once they step inside. He hangs the both of them in the closet just inside the entryway and turns back to find Kate tugging at the collar of her sweater, unsuccessfully trying to relieve the discomfort of the sudden onset of heat.

"Still warm?" Castle asks, gesturing at her sweater and she nods.

"Do you mind if I...?" she starts, pointing towards the doorway just off her living room that leads into her bedroom. Castle gives a nod of his head.

"No, no. Go ahead. Get comfortable."

"I'll turn the air on for a bit," she tells him, fiddling with the thermostat until the fan clicks on. She comes back to him where he stands in her kitchen beside the island, pondering over her uncharacteristically cluttered counter space.

"I'd say make us some coffee but believe it or not, I don't think I have any. I've uh...checked," she says, gesturing to the disarray. She'd had a few rough nights of little sleep, mostly spent pouring over old books sitting on the staircase and downing cups of decaffeinated coffee in an attempt to soothe herself into a mood for rest. Met with minimal success, she went straight for the regular blend and depleted the reserves of that, too, to fend off fatigue instead.

"I'll find something," he assures her, then turns to give her a little push in the right direction. "Go on."

"Trying to get rid of me?" she teases and he makes a gruff noise in his throat, shaking his head.

"Not you. Your clothes."

It rolls off his tongue before he even realizes how it sounds and she turns her head abruptly, a smoldering look overtaking her eyes.

"Castle," she breathes, warning and question both and then he starts sputtering.

"N-not what I meant. I mean, not that I don't want to—I do. At some point. If you want to."

His eyes are dark and fixated on hers, as though waiting or seeking approval on what he's said.

"You know I do." She steps back into him, hands gripping his shirt on either side of him. "At some point," she parrots back.

"Just...not tonight," he supplies, pulling her into his chest as she nods.

"Yes. First things first."

"To be honest, I don't even know where to start first. There are so many things I want to ask you. So many years worth of questions."

"I know," she says, then admits, "Me too."

"Maybe we can just go back to basics. Have a round of Twenty Questions."

That makes her want to both smile and frown at the same time.

"You don't need to resort to deductive reasoning to get answers out of me, Castle."

"Good to know. I don't seem to have the best track record for that with this. Us."

His words are said in jest, and his self-deprecating laugh was meant to lighten the mood, but it still stings both of them more than he'd expected it to. She pulls from him, sets a hand on his cheek.

"I'm gonna go change. Then we'll talk."

He watches as she disappears beyond the doorway to her room, giving him one last look in his direction before she does.

* * *

><p>Kate emerges minutes later in an oversized purple shirt with a wide neckline, and black leggings, her hair pulled up in a messy bun with a few stray locks dangling down to frame her face. She finds Castle just a short distance from where she left him, now perusing the contents of her cupboard for something edible.<p>

"I'd thought you'd gotten better at keeping food stocked in this place," he says, hearing the quiet sound of her bare feet padding towards him before he sees her from the corner of his eye.

"Yeah, sorry. Couldn't be bothered with shopping recently. Are you really hungry?"

"Just a little bit. You?"

She steps behind him and opens a drawer beneath her counter, pulling out a small plastic container. She flips the top open and holds it out for him.

"Just to tide you over for now," she offers, and he reads the label on the container.

Chocolate espresso-flavored gourmet granola bars.

He reaches in and pulls out one at first, then two, and after glancing up at Kate, reaches back in for a third, which he hands to her. "I hope this isn't all you've been running off of recently."

"No," she smiles, closing up the container and replacing it in the drawer, which she closes with a bump of her hip. "Just mornings."

He glowers, prompting her to add, "Don't worry. I've ordered in Chinese and Thai about four or five times this past week."

"Yeah, as comfort food when you get home from dealing with me—"

"Hush," she commands, setting three fingers over his mouth to stop him. "No more, please?"

"Fine," he grumbles, tearing into the wrapper of one of his bars and chomping off the end of it. The rich flavor assaults his tastebuds and he's quick to devour the rest of it. He gestures to the one in Kate's hand. "But you better eat your granola bar."

She smiles softly and complies, unwrapping the plastic and making a show of taking her first bite. When he looks like he's about to stand there and watch her finish the whole thing, she rolls her eyes and links her arm with his, stopping briefly to grab a bottle of water from the fridge before pulling him with her toward the living room. She unscrews the cap and takes a swig of her water before setting the bottle down on the coffee table, then pops the last of her granola bar into her mouth, stifling a laugh as Castle tears into his second, stuffing the wrappers of both of his into his pocket. She tugs him back onto the couch, Castle sitting on the middle cushion as she settles in on his left on the chaise lounge. She's sitting up momentarily before thinking better of it and sliding down, knees tucked up to her chest as she lies down on her side, cheek coming to rest on his thigh.

"You're tired," he observes, setting his left arm around her lithe body.

"I'm okay." But she's not. Not really. She'd been running full-out all day in her quest to nail Nigel Wyndham on arms trafficking and murder charges. Added to everything in the evening and up to now and she's completely spent.

"Kate, it's nearly three. We don't have to do this now. You should go to bed, get some rest."

"I _am _resting." Her arm curls over his legs, left hand reaching for his right. He clutches it, lets her thread her fingers in his, his thumb drawing circles into her skin.

"Kate."

"No, Castle. No more waiting," she replies defiantly, and it comes out on a yawn as much as she tries to disguise it as anything but.

"We're not waiting," he says soothingly. "Just taking a momentary pause."

"Stylize your wording all you want, Writer Boy. Still the same thing."

"Then ask me, Kate."

She turns her head to look up at him, brows knit in question.

"What?"

"If you're so dead-set on doing this now, ask me what you've been _not _asking me very loudly all night and the past three days."

Their eyes meet as he says it, and then she knows, has to look away. Her fingers twitch beneath his and she sighs.

"I'm afraid to hear the answer if I do."

Castle brings his hand to her chin, gently tips her face back to him. Her jaw is set, tense, but she meets his eyes again, reluctantly.

"You think I slept with her," he says and hears her sharp intake of air as he watches her eyes close. She's back to chewing on the inside of her cheek, bracing herself for impact.

She hadn't realized how much it mattered to her if he did or didn't until now. Was she jealous of the flight attendant? Absolutely. But the fact that her lie may have pushed him into the other woman's arms and quite possibly a bed...

Kate's not so sure how she'll be able to handle that.

He starts running his left hand up and down her side, slow, gentle strokes, then tugs the hand he's holding up to his lips, pressing a soft kiss along her knuckles.

"Did you?" she asks, her voice small, feeble. His response is immediate.

"No."

Kate lets out a breath she was holding and her eyes snap back open, focusing back on him. His gaze hasn't left her once.

"No?"

"Are you surprised?" he asks, but she doesn't answer, isn't sure she should. Either answer implies her impression of his character, and one answer will hurt him. Deeply. She already admitted fear of hearing the answer, so he has to know. It was fear because, yes, she thought it was possible that he did, that he would. Even Lanie made the one-night stand comment that first night.

"Talk to me, Kate," he urges, squeezing her hand.

"Look, I know it's a cop out but...part of me thought you did by how you were behaving."

He nods, understanding. He really can't blame her for thinking so after he seemingly reverted back to the man she'd first met.

"And the other part of you?"

"The other part of me wanted—needed—to believe in what you said to me. To believe that it wasn't too late, that _I _wasn't too late." She pauses. "I think that's what scared me most."

"What?"

"That you'd given up and gave me no inkling as to why."

Castle goes quiet but his hand continues it's path along her side.

"I tried, Kate. To move on," he says after a moment, fingers jostling hers nervously. She studies him intently, hanging on every word. "And I'd thought about it—sleeping with her—but when it came down to it, I couldn't go through with it."

"Why?"

"Because she wasn't you."

She feels his legs shift beneath her and then he's moving off the couch, taking both of her hands in his as he kneels on the floor. Kate straightens up on her knees, staring down at him with wide eyes, darting to and from each of his. She doesn't know what to expect next.

"Sometimes I get hurt and I act like a jackass because I don't know how to cope with heartache other than to drown it out in the stupidest, most immature ways possible. I tried everything I could think of to move on and dull the pain, but it didn't work, Kate. I can't just turn my feelings off. Not the ones I have for you."

His eyes start glistening and she sees him blinking rapidly, trying to keep his emotions in check but his voice wavers with every word spoken.

"But I need you to know, no matter what happens in the future, I'll be better. You've changed me. I'm a better man because of you, and I swear I will never hurt you or make you doubt me like this again. I'm not that guy, Kate. I'm not that guy anymore."

His voice is raw, broken and anguished and Kate can't take it anymore. She throws herself at him on the floor, arms coiled tightly around his neck.

"I know you're not," she murmurs, clinging to him desperately, but it's not enough for what's eating away inside of him.

"I love you," he chokes out, kissing her exposed shoulder, then her neck, up to her cheek. "I love you, Kate."

She tries to reassure him but her voice comes out a strangled sob. She frames his face with her hands, nuzzling her nose into him, feathering kisses along his skin in the wake of her touch.

"I know, Rick," she manages finally, lips pressing to his, her kiss a balm for his emotional turmoil. "I love you, too."

* * *

><p>They spend the next hour and a half together on the chaise, Kate nestled in the vee of his legs, back to his chest, his arms wrapped around her waist, her arms tangled up in his. They talk about anything and everything that springs to mind next; uninhibited questions, open and honest answers.<p>

He asks her when she first knew she was in love with him, and when she says that it was the beginning of summer after their first year working together, that discussion spirals into a chain of questions and answers revolving around her break up with Demming, how she wanted to go with him to The Hamptons, and how Josh came into the picture and when he left it.

They talk about their first case back together after that summer and how she let him win so that he could come back. He refuses to believe it at first, and then she brings up how she threw that poker hand before, too, for his benefit. "But this time it benefited us both," she tells him with a squeeze of his hand.

She reveals that Penny had said an "Alexander" would save her life and he has to add in that the amateur psychic neglected to mention that it would be multiple times, leading him to tallying up the score again. He gets a fist in the quadriceps for it before she recounts how terrified she was when 3XK got the drop on him and Ryan, when Trapper John threatened to kill him over the phone and the bank exploded, how he didn't answer her in the sinking car and when Sophia came so close to pulling the trigger.

He growls and Kate laughs hysterically at his reaction when she gives him a bogus story on the classified information the mystery agent told her at the end of Marie Subbarao's murder investigation. It makes him sulk for a few minutes, and he gives her the silent treatment until she kisses him, hard. After that, they end up admitting that neither of them could stop thinking about that first kiss in the alley for weeks, nor the freezer and the seconds before he pulled the wires on the bomb.

She admits that his mention that they could just "sleep on it" sent a shiver down her spine, and that she opened the hotel room door only to find that he'd already vacated the room. He's happy to know about it, but confesses that he's glad nothing happened. It wouldn't have been right, not when she was still with Josh and when she was so emotionally raw from her mentor's murder. She allows him to read Royce's letter after that, and says that she never wants to think "If only" when it comes to him ever again. He promises that she never will.

The last thing they talk about is the night Captain Montgomery lost his life. She'd told him once before after her shooting that he should have let her go in the hangar. This time, she thanks him for saving her life, saving her from herself, and for staying by her side throughout everything in the aftermath of that fateful day.

Finally, she thanks him for coming back after she pushed him away, for waiting for her, loving her in spite of her flaws, and for saving her before she'd even met him, his words and books pulling her from the dark depths of her mother's murder.

He, of course, replies, "Always."

* * *

><p>"Come to bed, Castle," she yawns, dragging herself off the couch, her eyes barely able to stay open anymore while in his arms. She tugs him up by his hand but he stiffens, suddenly looking nervous and unsure of himself.<p>

"Kate, I thought we—"

"We can just...cuddle," she interjects, coming up behind him, grabbing both his hands in hers and threading their fingers together into the formation of a gun. He lets out a hearty laugh and she's so happy to hear it.

"Mm, you remember that?"

"How could I forget? Your hands were all over me."

"Only because you tricked me."

"Don't have to trick you anymore though, do I?"

She shakes her head and steps back around him pressing a kiss to the exposed area of his collar bone beneath his shirt as she unbuttons it and pulls it off of him, tossing it to the table.

"We've sure had some fun times over the years, haven't we?" he says, as they step through the doorway to her bedroom, hands linked together.

"Yeah. We have."

They separate briefly at the foot of the bed. Kate turns the covers back and slips in, Castle sliding in beside her from the other end. She takes a moment to adjust on her pillow and after he tugs the sheets back over them, he reaches out and takes her hand, weaving their fingers back together. They gaze wordlessly at one another for a moment, sharing sweet smiles and unspoken promises in their eyes. Kate turns onto her right side, facing away from him, and settles back into his chest again, tugging his arm around her, fingers of her left hand twined with his just over her hip. She releases a contented sigh when he presses his lips to her shoulder blade and the space where the wide neck of her shirt leaves her skin bare.

"How did I get so lucky that you fell in love with me?" he whispers softly, between brushes of his lips against her skin.

Her head turns just enough to reach him when he leans forward and she kisses him, tender, languidly.

"You made it easy."


	8. Chapter 8

He's not sure what time it is or how long he's been asleep, but he's pretty sure that the noise that has woken him up isn't an alarm clock, nor is it coming from the warm body nestled against his back; a body that he's _just now _registering as a body against his back.

Right. He's with Kate. In her bed. And—

Wow.

With her knees pressed to the back of his legs and an arm draped over his waist, she's spooning him. Actually _spooning _him. He can even feel the moist heat of her breath tickling his shoulder blades where her cheek rests upon his flesh, and the press of her diaphragm against his lower back as she breathes in and out in slow, steady breaths.

When did this reversal happen? He could've sworn their positions were flipped before he'd closed his eyes and finally succumbed to sleep. He welcomes it with open arms but he can't help but wonder if she gravitated toward him in her sleep, or if this was a conscious decision on her part to snuggle up to him like she had on the couch some time (Hours? He has no clue.) before.

Kate Beckett is most definitely a snuggler, he determines, but as curious and giddy as he is over the discovery, it isn't why he's woken up. No, the noise coming from somewhere behind her is the source of his sleep deprivation. It's a rattling buzz going off in long pulses and now he takes a mental note that not only is Kate a snuggler, but she must either be a very heavy sleeper or really was on the brink of exhaustion to not be waking up to this nerve-grating nuisance, too.

Castle lifts his head, craning his neck over his shoulder and is able to make out what appears to be Kate's white iPhone dancing around and around on the nightstand while it vibrates, the screen lit up, though he can't read it at this angle. He can only see the light reflecting off the walls around them.

"Kate," he calls to her softly, twisting away from her to turn onto his back. She makes an unintelligible noise of protest as he shifts, dislodging her, and her hands instinctively reach out to pull him back to her. With him being shirtless, she can't really get a grip on him and her fingers slide off the smooth surface of skin at his ribs.

"Kate. Phone," he tries again, catching her hands, and she grumbles something else incoherent. He rubs his hand up and down the arm that was previously attached at his hip and this time she actually growls at him in response when he speaks.

"Your phone is ringing." He winces as it sounds off particularly louder, knocking into something else on the nightstand. Metallic. Must be a lamp. "Kate. Buzzing."

"Just let it ring," she mutters, scooting across the sheets and curling into his side, re-adjusting her cheek to rest on his bare chest. "Trial prep. Not on call."

"Could be something important though," he says as his head falls back to the pillow. "Whoever it is, they keep calling you."

She shakes her head then shifts, planting one hand at his side and the other flat against his chest, propping herself up. She lifts just above him, loose curls of her hair dangling down into his face. He can barely see her in the dim lighting from the ringing phone, but it's enough to illuminate the green of her eyes. They shine down at him, sleepy but gorgeous. Simply gorgeous. He can't resist the urge to reach up and touch her face.

"Not as important as this," she murmurs, and then her mouth makes a quick descent down to his.

The buzzing stops, the backlight of the phone dims then shuts off completely, and then they're left in total darkness. Castle lifts into her, deepening the kiss as he wraps her in his arms. She grunts her objection to the action as he rolls her onto her back, but then he's kissing her again so fervently, the broad expanse of his chest pinning her to the mattress, and she can't be bothered to care anymore that he's taken away her control.

He can have it. Just take it all.

They break apart breathlessly, Castle rolling off of her, and as though their bodies are synchronized to one another, they turn on their sides to face each other. She curls her fingers into the hair behind his ear, stroking the lobe with her thumb as his hand clutches her hip, kneading into her skin, muscle, bone.

"Back to sleep, Castle," she whispers, her thumb tracing across his temple, along his forehead and then down to one of his eyes, lightly brushing downward against his eyelid to coax it closed.

He grins, though she'd never be able to see it in the dark. She's always been intriguing to him, but she's quite a fascinating woman when tired and half-asleep. He loves it. Loves her.

"G'night, Kate," he says, because he never said it before. She'd fallen asleep in his arms much too quickly and it wasn't long after that he'd followed suit.

"Mmm," she hums in response. It sounds as though it was meant to be words but she's slipping under again and can only manage one syllable.

"Night."

* * *

><p>Castle wakes some time later to that same incessant buzzing again. It's still dark in the bulk of the room, but while no light reaches beyond her bedroom curtains, the sunlight from the living room has gradually been filtering into the apartment, setting it ablaze with an orange hue of light. Little Kate Beckett may have been afraid of the dark but as an adult she seemed to welcome it into her place of slumber, having invested in room-darkening curtains to keep out the city lights at night and allow herself some extra comfort in the morning before opening her eyes and taking on a new day.<p>

He reaches over, running on pure reflex, head still so hazy from such a great quality of sleep this time that he doesn't even register where he is. Nor does he register the woman sleeping next to him, even though she is currently obstructing his access to the phone. He's forced to stretch, fingers splayed and scampering around before managing to grab the offensive object.

Eyes closed but phone in-hand, he pulls it to his ear, answers it.

"Castle."

"Castle?" comes the surprised voice on the other end.

"What?" he responds, eyes blinking lazily. He knows he knows that voice from somewhere but the name and face it belongs to is on the tip of his tongue. He's still just so sleepy...

"What are you doing with Beckett's phone?" the voice asks again, intonation littered with something that sounds like a mixture of concern and amusement both. He scrunches his face, pulls the phone away from his ear to look at it.

"Oh," he says, realizing that yes, it's definitely Kate's phone he has and of course the voice is familiar. Lanie's name and picture are staring back at him.

He brings the phone back to his ear, and without really thinking about it, because his mind is still so sleep-addled, corrects his answering greeting.

"Beckett."

Kate stirs next to him at the sound of her surname, humming a soft "Hmm?" in response.

"Not talking to you. Go back to sleep," he says gruffly, then opens his eyes wide. Realization hits him for the second time this morning. It's going to take him a while to get used to waking up next to this beautiful woman, especially if she keeps reaching for him every time she wakes, her cool fingertips curling against his skin. The shiver it sends through him is enough to fully wake him from any sleepy stupor.

"Go back to sleep?" Lanie parrots from the other end of the phone, excitement and shock laced in her voice now. "Castle, did you guys—"

"Who are you talking to?" Kate asks curiously, and she yawns as her eyes flutter open. She reaches over to turn on the bedside lamp and when she turns back to Castle, she sees his hand to his ear.

"Is that _my _phone?" she asks, eyebrow arched at him.

"Yes," he replies, then quickly into the phone, "No, 'yes' to Kate's question, _not that_. Hey, wait. Calm down. I didnt—"

"Castle, who are you talking to?" Kate inquires hesitantly, hearing the quick and animated chatter of the voice on the phone, but not quite able to pinpoint what's being said and who the person is from her distance.

"Lanie," he replies, as nonchalant as can be.

"Lanie!" she shouts, wide awake now, and immediately begins a quest to take the phone away from him.

"Whoa, what are you doing?" he says as he evades her, but she's too quick in her next movement, tackling him backward onto the bed before he gets the chance to dodge again. He holds his hand up above his head, keeping the phone just out of reach but then Kate's knee is in his chest to hold him down while she reaches for his hand.

Lanie can be heard either laughing or squealing, neither of them is quite sure. Maybe it's both.

"Hey, I'm injured here," he grunts as she's peeling his fingers away from the phone in his hand. "Be gentle!"

She ignores his pouting, pressing harder with her knee before sitting back up on her side of the bed.

Somehow she manages to calmly answer her phone.

"Hey Lanie."

"Girl, don't you _dare _'Hey Lanie' me," the ME responds with enough sass to make the detective cringe. "I tell you to call me and I don't even get so much as a text to let me know that you're getting your freak on with Writer Boy?"

"What?" Kate chokes out, and Castle studies her with a great deal of amusement dancing in his eyes. She turns about three shades of red when she looks back at him.

"What did you tell her?" she says exasperatedly at Castle in a hushed tone, holding her hand over the phone. He shakes his head at her, shrugs his shoulders, mouthing the word 'nothing'. She glares at him.

"Kate!" Lanie says, loudly enough that she can hear her name despite the phone being held at a distance from her ears.

"Yeah. I'm here, I'm here."

Castle gets out of bed and points toward the ensuite bathroom with a grin. She waves him off, frowning as he enters and closes the door behind him. Kate lets out an exasperated sigh and braces herself.

"So, you going to tell me what went down last night or am I going to have to pry it out of you?" Lanie asks impatiently.

"I was going to call you. We both just got so wrapped up—"

"Ha, wrapped up. You can say that again," Castle chimes in loudly from the bathroom, voice all chipper and pleased with himself. "And I'll have you know, I love being wrapped up with you."

"I heard that," Lanie says and Kate drags a hand down her face. Castle chooses that moment to re-emerge from the door and Kate points at him, fixes him with a look.

"You. Shut up, stop eavesdropping and get me coffee," she commands, all no-nonsense and authoritative. She can immediately tell it has the opposite intended effect since he looks more aroused and smug than anything.

"You don't have any coffee, honey," he reminds her with a wicked smile as he takes a seat at the edge of the bed. She scowls at him and when he attempts to lean in and kiss her cheek, she very flexibly curls her knee up to her chest and digs the still-blanketed ball of her foot into his sternum, holding him at bay. He frowns.

"You're resourceful, _honey,_" she tells him and it elicits a smile from the writer. "Use your resources and find me some."

"I can do that."

"So do it."

She lets up on him, her foot sliding back down to the bed, and allows him swoop in, only rather than her cheek, Kate tilts so that he takes her lips instead. They release from each other with an audible pop and she gives him a little shove on his shoulder to get him moving. He does.

"Hear that, too?" Kate says into her phone, airy and wistful as she watches him disappear out her bedroom door.

"Hear what? The kissing or the bantering back and forth all the while sounding like two lovesick teenagers?"

"Hey, Kate?" Castle's voice echoes from her living room. "Where'd you throw my shirt?"

When Lanie very audibly gasps, Kate shuts her eyes, pinches the bridge of her nose and smiles wryly.

"Lanie, is it a bad sign when you want to shoot your boyfriend not even 8 hours after you get together?"

"Under normal circumstances, yes," her friend replies with a laugh. "But for you two? I think it's a sign that everything is going just fine."

Kate smiles genuinely to that before yelling back at him, "Check under the coffee table!"

"Found it!" he says, then pokes his head into the doorway, waving it around for her to see, as if she actually needs the visual proof. Ridiculous man.

"Coffee, Castle." She's trying to be stern again but her voice betrays her and the smile just won't fade from her face.

"Coffee. Right. One grande skim latte with two pumps of sugar-free vanilla coming right up."

"And a bearclaw."

"And a bearclaw," he repeats but doesn't move right away, just leans against the doorway, watching her.

"So," Lanie says, breaking the silence, finding that obviously she needs to extract that information out of her friend after all. "Shirtless and waking up together?"

"Long story, Lanie."

She smiles and gazes longingly back at Castle when he flashes her a tender smile. He looks tempted to stay but eventually turns on his heel. He walks the short distance to the couch, retrieving his cell phone from where he left it on a cushion hours ago and is pleased to find that he can still hear her talking despite the distance between the rooms. The desire to deliver his partner's morning coffee to her is strong, but hearing her happily dish out information to her friend is even more so appealing.

Castle pulls up his contacts on his phone and composes a text message to someone halfway down the list. He hits send and relaxes back into the chaise, tugging on his shirt and buttoning it back up, taking note of how strongly the fabric smells of her sweet, enticing scent from all the time they'd spent this morning curled up together in this very spot. Has it really only been six hours since they'd first sat down here and talked?

"You know him," he hears her say, just after she makes a hesitant noise and non-committal answer to something Lanie's asked her. "He's probably out there listening, waiting for me to divulge something scandalous to you."

Castle laughs, not even trying to hide it, and then she's laughing, too, barking out an, "I knew it!"

His phone chirps back with a reply then and he grins, sending out another text before setting the phone down on the coffee table.

He settles back into her couch and waits, just listening, reliving every thought, every feeling from the night before, relishing in the fact that she's knowingly letting him hear her retell their story from her point of view. Barring some details, of course.

She may be openly in love with him but she's still Kate Beckett after all, and some things are better not shared with the rest of the world.


	9. Chapter 9

After a verbal scolding from her best friend for not jumping Castle's bones the first chance she got, Lanie finally lets Kate off the hook. She's not pleased about it at all when Kate tells her they _slept _together but didn't _sleep _together, but still, it's _something _after four years and that counts for something, she supposes. She's willing to let it slide, for now, _but you better believe I'm expecting details eventually Kate Beckett! _and the detective promises they'll have another girls night soon.

_Speaking of..._she thinks as she hears a loud knock at the front door of her apartment. Just as she's about to get up and move, Castle's shouting "I've got it!" and Lanie's going on about something (she's fairly certain she heard her say something about Castle again), but she can hardly pay attention because Castle's out there greeting someone with an overly cheerful lilt to his voice and she's not quite sure she likes the sound of it. Her eyes narrow when she hears what sounds to be like something exchanging hands and then an exchange of _Thank you_'s before the front door closes again.

"Kate did you hear a word I just said?"

"Lanie, I'm sorry. I've gotta go."

"Castle acting up?" the ME replies, teasingly.

"Not sure," she says to her friend as she tears herself from the sheets of her bed. She can hear the man in question rummaging around in her kitchen though so Lanie's guess is as good as hers.

"I don't know what he's up to out there, but I better go find out."

"You told him to be resourceful, if I recall correctly."

"Exactly. And that's what I'm worried about."

"All right girl, but I want you keeping me up to date on anymore..._developments_...between you two."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll talk to you later, Lanie." So she says, but she has a feeling she won't be remembering to call her friend back again before the night is through.

* * *

><p>The first thing she notices when she rounds the corner from her bedroom to the living room is the aroma assaulting her senses. Coffee? Yes. That wonderful scent is unmistakable and can only be her sweet morning nectar of life.<p>

"I've procured breakfast," Castle says cheerily, moving to meet her with a coffee in one hand, plate with bear claw in the other. A quick glance over his shoulder and a whiff of the air in the kitchen reveals that coffee and pastries aren't the only items he's somehow had delivered to her apartment.

Is that...bacon? And not your average looking pancakes, too. _Really?_

"How did you even..." she starts, and Castle grins widely as he's quick to fill in the blanks for her.

"I know a guy," he boasts proudly.

"Of course you do," she laughs.

He swoops in to kiss her cheek then, whispering a soft "Good morning,_"_ against her skin and she hums in response, eyes falling shut as a shiver runs through her in reflex. She drops a kiss to the corner of his mouth before he can pull away from her, murmuring a quiet "Mornin'," back to him.

She takes the cup and plate from his hands and pivots on her foot to turn around and take a seat in one of the bar stools at her kitchen island-slash-stovetop. Castle swings back around to the counter to pile some bacon and pancakes onto a plate before returning to the opposite side of the island, leaning on his elbows as he picks at his food with his fingers. Her mouth quirks in amusement as she watches him wince. Apparently the bacon is still quite hot.

"So what, do you have some pastry chef on speed dial or something?" she asks, giving her to-go cup a little swirl to slosh the liquid inside around before she takes a sip.

"Actually," he starts and gives her an animated look as though seeking approval for his storytelling. She gestures for him to go on with the wave of her hand.

"When Alexis was little, we used to frequent a little hole in the wall place on the west side that was near a park, sort of a Mom-and-Pop bakery that served donuts, gourmet pancakes and french toast in the morning. Due to the vicinity of the park, they had this area set up inside just for the kids to play in while waiting for their breakfast to be cooked. Alexis would get to sit there and draw pictures, play house or use an Easy Bake Oven, and she loved the cinnamon roll pancakes so much that sometimes she begged me to take her there more than once a week for breakfast. She'd even promised me she'd brush her teeth three times extra to make sure it wouldn't give her any cavities."

He lets out a chuckle at the memory and says with a grin, "How could I say no to that?"

Kate can't help the smile that erupts on her face or the joy that suffuses her listening to Castle happily weave the tale for her of his past with his daughter. She pictures a younger Castle and even younger version of Alexis, fiery red hair on a tiny body that doesn't even come up to Castle's hip in height. Her little hands would be tightly grasping onto her father's fingers as they walk down the sidewalk, eagerly tugging him along and into their favorite little breakfast place. Castle, completely unable to refuse his darling little girl anything, would give in every time.

"Since we went so often, we became close with Aaron and Theresa, the couple that ran the place, but when Alexis turned seven, they closed down the shop and opted to run it from home, mostly catering little events and luncheons on a small scale. I guess it was Aaron's way of retiring but still keeping one foot in the door, not wanting to be out just yet.

"Anyway, Alexis cried nearly the whole time we were there on closing day, so we made a deal: if she kept drawing them pretty pictures, they'd keep making her pancakes. I just needed to uh, pay for the courier service in addition to the meal."

"So all these years later, they still deliver pancakes for you two?"

"Nope. To be honest, this was the first time I ever asked about it in years," he says sheepishly, rubbing lightly at the back of his head, careful not to hit his stitches. "Aaron's well and truly retired now. I wasn't even sure if he'd be awake at this hour—"

"Castle," she scolds, ready to reprimand him for bothering a retired couple so early in the morning but he waves his hands quick to defend himself.

"I know what you're thinking but I texted instead of calling!" Kate rolls her eyes. "He was up _and _he was in the kitchen, so it worked out perfectly. I just needed to make sure the bike messenger stopped for coffee, too."

When she still gives him a look of reprove, he adds, "And I tipped Aaron by about 200% for the short notice?"

Kate huffs a laugh and shakes her head at him.

"I swear, Castle. Only you."

He leans over the island, extending a hand to tip her chin up. She meets his eyes, an ocean of blue swimming with affection for her.

"Better only be me," he husks, his warm breath tickling her cheeks. "I don't like to share."

She bites her lip to hold back the smile but quickly gives up the fight. Meeting him halfway, she leans across the island, capturing his lips in a tender kiss that he reciprocates at once.

"It's always been you."

* * *

><p>He invites her back to the loft after breakfast and though she looks uneasy at first, she accepts his offer to spend the day with him and his family. With the trial date not set for at least another week or two, she decides that she can afford to take a day off now, and if she's honest with herself, she'd much rather spend the day resolving any lingering problems or insecurities and mending their relationship before diving right back in to work.<p>

Not to say she feels insecure or in any way broken at present with him. Quite the contrary, especially given the way he had pinned her against the sink earlier as she was washing her hands, how he made her shudder as he whispered in her ear all the wicked things he's fantasized about doing with and to her in this kitchen of hers over the past two years.

_Later_, she'd promised him, sealing it with her kiss.

First things first, much as they longed to avoid it in favor of much simpler, more enjoyable activities.

With his mother currently under the impression that Kate Beckett had been embarrassed of his love confession and broke her son's heart into a million pieces while stringing him along for months after her return to the 12th, Castle did feel a sense of urgency when it came to coming clean and clearing the air on the whole situation.

His mother adores Kate, and despite some issues regarding his safety earlier in the year, he knows that deep down Alexis still admires the detective and sees how happy it makes her father when he's with his muse. Well, she did until Kate had left him over the summer, and directly after the bombing case, though this time she's had no understanding of why he's been so upset. Castle has never been one to divulge that aspect of his personal life to his daughter, but she had to have some inkling, had to be able to tell that all roads and angst led back to Beckett in some way, somehow.

_I was an idiot and I wrong. She loves me. I love her. We're together now.  
><em>

Would explaining it really be as simple and easy as that?_  
><em>

He calls Alexis just as they leave Kate's apartment to let her know he and his partner were on their way home. He visibly tenses at the tone she uses to question, _'Beckett, too?_' and the woman in question catches his daughter's voice inadvertently, too, flinches in response. He doesn't elaborate further, just confirms and says he's bringing along a nostalgic pancake surprise, too. Kate can hear his daughter's excited reply of _'Really?' _as they step onto the elevator and Castle has to quickly end the call before he loses his signal as the lift makes its descent.

"Will she...be okay with it?" she asks him tentatively, and for the first time Castle himself worries if his daughter will approve after all. He won't voice his concern though, holds his poker face as he doesn't answer her, just gives her a smile before tugging her into his arms.

"We'll be okay," he says instead. "We're okay."

* * *

><p>"Now you're making <em>me<em> nervous," he tells her, watching as she fidgets and shifts in her seat for ninth or tenth time.

Rather than contribute to more of the morning rush hour traffic, they opt for a cab instead of taking the Ferrari back to the loft. Kate regrets it instantaneously as the cab pulls out into traffic though, leaving her stuck seated and with nothing to occupy her thoughts with besides her growing nervousness.

"Sorry," she says, and they share a look that is both sympathetic and _we're being ridiculous, _so she takes his hand in hers, her digits interlaced between his.

After a few minutes of seemingly comfortable quiet, Kate finally breaks it.

"I just...it's been four years, Castle, and let's face it, I've never been...God, I just don't want them to think that I'm—"

"Hey."

He stops her rambling by pulling their connected hands to his mouth, dropping soft kisses to her knuckles. The rest of her elucidation falls silent on her lips.

"They love you, Kate," he assures her, and she releases a long, breathy sigh. She unconsciously squeezes his hand as he presses his lips to the tip of her nose, her cheek, and finally her mouth; a gentle reassurance and affirmation that they're in this together now.

There's no need for her to explain herself to his family. Not when he just spent the night with her tangled in his arms. Not when she's now tucked into his side, their hands clasped together, her fingers intertwined with own. Not when he knows the truth now.

"_I_ love you, Kate, and you love me. You make me happy, and that's what matters most."

She touches her forehead to his, nods against his skin and holds there.

Everything will be okay. It has to be.


	10. Chapter 10

**Don't Fade Away**

**Final Chapter  
><strong>

* * *

><p>This wasn't how she expected things to go.<p>

"We don't have to tell them right away."

He'd said it on the elevator ride up to his loft because Kate was still visibly anxious, hanging at the back of the lift, her eyes glued to the floor as she watched Castle's feet dance around in his own nervous waltz of some sort. The man was clearly feeding off of her nervous energy and was beginning to lose his nerve on the whole thing himself, too.

"I mean, normally you don't introduce your girlfriend to your family before the first date, right?" he chuckled nervously, running a hand through his hair. He'd barely done a thing to it before leaving Kate's apartment and mussing it up more with his hand was not helping his appearance any whatsoever.

"Castle, I already know your family," she said needlessly because _duh_, but damn it if that didn't come out shakier than she'd thought it would.

"Right. Yeah. I just mean—"

"I'm okay," she assured him quickly, though her eyes were shut and her hands were still gripping the interior railing of the elevator. He could see the whites of her knuckles every time she squeezed the bar tight enough.

"Hey," Castle said softly, then pressed his lips to her forehead as he tugged her hands from the rail. "They love you, Kate. You know they love you."

She nodded, felt the need to assure him again. "I'm fine, Castle. I'm in this."

The elevator pinged, marking their arrival at his floor and they both startled at the noise before shuffling out and into the hallway, Kate trailing slowly behind him, still mildly hesitant. She was really letting her thoughts and worries get ahead of her the closer they got to his front door. It was one thing for her and Castle to be completely and openly smitten with each other, but an entirely different matter when it came down to breaking the news to everyone they love. Especially family. Martha she had no doubts about. But Alexis...

All she could think about in this moment was how angry the girl appeared outside that bank, and the way she'd stared her down inside the morgue after interrupting the conversation about Sophia Turner. The image of the teen's arms folded across her chest made her heart quicken in her chest.

Especially given...well...recent circumstances. Like lies and blondes and spending the night in the emergency room before curling up on the couch and then her bed, and...

_Okay, slow down, Kate. _

They've gotten along before. Hell, Alexis even worked in the precinct briefly at one point. She called her up for advice on school abroad. Castle said that Alexis looked up to her.

Alexis wouldn't be so quick to disapprove, right?

Her doubts getting the best of her, Kate reached out and gave a little tug on the back of his jacket but didn't do or say anything further than that.

Key pressed into the lock but doorknob left untouched an unturned, Castle turned back around to her, meeting her eyes, seeing the untold explanation in the depths of her forest green eyes. He nodded once.

"We'll wait," he said. "We can just go in, hang out for a bit, see where it goes from there.

She let out a long breath of air at the relief of it all, but then he unlocked the door and they were instantly met with his mother and now it feels like all hell has broken loose inside of Kate Beckett's mind.

* * *

><p>No.<p>

This was not how she expected things to go. _Not at all._

It's not as though her partner's mother's actions were anything out of the ordinary at first; she's been grappled into a fierce hug and twirled around on more than one occasion, and it's not as though Martha has never asked them if they were going out on a date before or what they would be doing when going out together in evening wear.

But this time seems...different. Measured.

Calculating.

Ever since they walked through the front door, Castle still wearing yesterday's clothing and carrying the disheveled appearance of someone making their morning walk of shame, it's as though his mother already knows. Not just suspicion and speculation, she _knows _something.

She's onto them already and Kate's only managed to squeak out a, "Hi, Martha," before Castle leaves her—abandons her—to fend for herself whilst he cleans himself up a bit. Martha exclaims that she and Alexis have seen him walk in the door looking far worse for wear before and he actually _blushes _looking over at Kate before insisting upon gussying up before his daughter made her way downstairs.

Which is where Kate now finds herself: downstairs, alone with her shiny new boyfriend's mother, the bounce in the elder woman's step and flair in her every word and motion.

Martha is going on and on about some play of hers that her school has been working on but Kate's not really catching any of the specifics. She's more or less catching the actions and nuances, not necessarily the meaning of the words.

She's always known his mother to be fairly energetic, but at this hour of the morning, she's been far too energized for the nightlife-loving, sometimes morning hangover-affected Martha she's used to hearing about. There's also this twinkle in the elder woman's eye and knowing look that she keeps giving her, despite the words that she's speaking, that makes Kate squirm under perceived scrutiny whenever Martha glances her way.

She's a trained detective, damn it, but Martha Rodgers is currently giving her a run for her money when it comes to detecting things. It wouldn't bother her so much, she thinks, if Martha would just call them out on it already instead of all the smiling and looking so obviously ecstatic.

"So darling," the elder woman begins and Kate thinks to herself _Okay, here we go..._

"How's work?"

Once again, not what she expected. Small talk? Really? Okay. She can do small talk.

"Fine."

Well, she's probably looking for more than that in an answer so, "Everything is fine."

"And you and Richard are..." Martha prompts, and Kate swallows hard.

"Are...?" she throws back, testing the waters.

"Getting along."

And there's the twinkle again and the lift of her lips and eyebrows as she says it and oh, hell. She's got them pegged. Did Martha study how to be a detective at some point in her acting career, or is she just that great of an actress that she can see through their (clearly) failed performance of 'we're just friends, nothing to see here'?

Now she's wondering just how much his mother knows. Castle briefly mentioned venting to his mother about hearing her confession to Bobby after the fact, but as far as anything more recent, she has no clue.

"Yeah. We umm...had plenty of time to ourselves to talk things over." She flushes crimson as it leaves her mouth, quickly adding, "In the hospital, I mean."

Martha merely nods her head, as if in understanding and to beckon her to go on. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, she doesn't get the chance to form anything further on the subject, as Alexis comes hopping down the stairs and adds a whole new element to the already awkward situation.

"Detective Beckett," the young girl greets, and Kate can already tell Castle's daughter is eyeing her carefully.

"Alexis. Hi." She's seriously hating herself right now for her ineloquence.

"Where's Dad?"

"He's in the shower, darling. Wanted to freshen up after the long night he and Detective Beckett had."

Is it possible to burst into flame from blushing alone? Because it certainly feels like she's been set on fire.

"Right. He bumped his head last night. But he's okay?" she directs her question at the detective, and then more cautiously, "He's not...hurting?"

Kate's heart skips a beat. Speaking in subtext, just like her father. Part of her feels like Castle would be proud to see and hear this, but his daughter's clear blue eyes seem to stare right through her as she speaks and she feels more like she's being grilled by both his parent about her intentions plus the concern of a daughter for her heartbroken father all rolled into one.

Ah well, Castle's always had that strange dynamic in his family, so perhaps it is to be expected.

These are all questions she can answer though. Including the hurt. Because they've addressed the issue. They've come to terms with it, and they're moving forward.

Together.

"Yes, he's okay. The doctors checked him over for any internal injury and the test results came back normal. They stitched him up and it's going to be a little tender and swollen for a while, but he's got a prescription of ibuprofen he's been taking."

She lowers her voice then to a softer tone, so that Alexis will have no questions about how sincere and heartfelt her next words are.

"We figured things out and I promise you, he's not hurting. And I have no intention of him getting hurt ever again."

Alexis doesn't smile, doesn't start jumping for joy or congratulating them, and really Kate wouldn't expect her to. This girl has seen her father in so many relationships over the years, how could she blame her for being cautious, reserved? But she's nodding her head at her, showing Kate that she understands, and the detective takes that as a positive sign. Alexis believes her, her words, her sincerity, her promise, and she is willing to give her a chance.

A chance that Kate is in no way going to take for granted. She'll show her. She's not like the other women that have come and gone. She's in this for the long run, for keeps.

Forever.

* * *

><p>Shortly after breakfast, Alexis has to run off to meet Lanie for her internship, and it's not long after that that Martha is rushing off to her school to teach a few classes, but not without the promise to return and cook them a fantastic celebratory feast for dinner. Unlike her granddaughter, whom gets very little of the details of Castle's love life, Martha has been Castle's one and only confidant in that respect, and she makes it clear to Kate that she's been campaigning for this courtship for <em>years, <em>and is so happy that they've finally taken the first step.

Under any other circumstances, Kate would feel a tremendous weight on her shoulders, a great deal of pressure and, quite honestly, she'd be absolutely terrified of the expectations a declaration like that entails. But instead, she feels none of it.

Why?

Because of Castle.

Because when the loft vacates and he looks over at her from across the room with an expression so full of unbridled love, as though she's the most beautiful creature on two legs he's ever seen in his life; when he carries her across the threshold of his bedroom, tasting her skin, her mouth, her lips and swearing he was a fool and will never let her go again; when he's whispering sweet nothings in her ear as he makes love to her for the first time, and holds her in his arms as they both drift off to sleep in post-coital bliss...

She believes him when he says that no matter how much they argue in the future, no matter how much they drive each other crazy or what obstacles may come between them, they're going to beat the odds. That today is merely the beginning of a new chapter in the love story they've been writing for the past four years.

Their "always".

And as she wakes, cards her fingers through his sleep and sex tousled hair, watching as he smiles sweetly in his slumber, dreaming about who knows what...she knows he's got her hook, line and sinker, has for a long while, and vice versa, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

Bring on the next chapter. She's ready for it._  
><em>


End file.
